Taiwan was conspicuously left out of yesterday's funeral of Wang Daohan , the mainland's top negotiator with the island, after a political tug of war that analysts see as evidence of Beijing once again checkmating Taipei.
Except for envoys from Taiwan's pro-unification opposition parties and business leaders, no officials represented Taiwan at the occasion in Shanghai yesterday.
The wife of the late Taiwan negotiator Koo Chen-fu, Cecilia Koo Yen Tso-yun, who attended the funeral and was greeted by Vice-President Zeng Qinghong , said: 'Within one year, the two have both left us, so I feel very sad.' She added both men had hoped for peace across the strait.
Taiwanese leaders present included Wu Poh-hsiung, a vice-chairman of the main opposition Kuomintang party, and Hsu Hsin-liang, a former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, known for his pro-China views.
Koo and Wang met for talks in 1993 and 1998. Koo, Wang's counterpart at Taiwan's semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, died of cancer in January.
Taiwan had hoped to use the funeral to achieve a breakthrough in the resumption of cross-strait political contact by sending the incumbent chairman of the SEF, Chang Chun-hsiung, who is also a leader of the pro-independence DPP, to Shanghai for the funeral.
But Mr Chang's offer to attend the funeral was snubbed by Beijing, with Xinhua quoting the family of the late president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (Arats) as saying that only acquaintances would be invited.
