Ex-leader of Taiwan's DPP criticised over talks with Chinese officials

Talks between a former head of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party and prominent mainland officials in Hong Kong and Shenzhen over the weekend marked a milestone in exchanges between the DPP and the Communist Party, which have a history of failing to see eye to eye.

But in Taiwan, Frank Hsieh Chang-ting faced a wave of criticism from the DPP's hard-core faction, which asked him to quit the party because of what they called his betrayal of its pro-independence stance.

Hsieh returned to Taipei yesterday after co-hosting a two-day forum with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences - a mainland government-funded think tank - in Hong Kong that ended on Sunday. The meeting saw him and nine DPP lawmakers meet 23 mainland officials and scholars, followed by a landmark meeting in Shenzhen that day with Zhang Zhijun , director of the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) under the mainland's State Council.

It was the first time that Beijing had sent so many officials and scholars to Hong Kong to meet such a large group of DPP lawmakers.

In Shenzhen, the TAO even helped Hsieh set up a meeting with a big group of Taiwanese businessmen based on the mainland. This was described by the local media and pundits as significant and signalling a new approach by Beijing in dealing with the DPP.

"[The talks] are aimed at finding another alternative or another possibility for the DPP" in dealing with its cross-strait policy, said Hsieh - seen as one of the most conciliatory DPP politicians in regard to the mainland - upon arriving at Taoyuan International Airport, south of Taipei.