The honorary chairman of Taiwan's incoming ruling Nationalist party will meet China's President Hu Jintao in Beijing next week, a party official said Saturday.
The visit appeared to be another indication of warming relations between rivals Taiwan and China, who split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing has threatened war if the self-governed island tries to make the break permanent, but tensions are likely to thaw following the China-friendly Nationalists' ouster of a pro-independence party in elections last month.
Honorary Nationalist party Chairman Lien Chan will brief Hu on the incoming Taiwanese government's China policy, Nationalist Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kung told reporters.
Lien's visit follows recent trips to China by Chiang and Vice President-elect Vincent Siew.
Siew also met Hu earlier this month.
Taiwan's United Daily News reported Saturday that Lien will arrive in Beijing on Monday and meet Hu on Tuesday. It will be Lien's fourth meeting with the Chinese leader.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Commercial Times said senior Chinese official Chen Yunlin was likely to visit Taiwan in late June. It has been widely reported that Chen was to become the head of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, a quasi-governmental Chinese agency dealing with Taiwan affairs.
A series of recent high-level exchanges between the Nationalists and China are in stark contrast to the hostility between Taiwan and the mainland under outgoing Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian during the past eight years.
Chen has long advocated Taiwan's sovereignty and rejected close trade ties with China. Many Taiwanese, however, blamed Taiwan's underperforming economy on Chen's reluctance to allow closer relations that would let the island benefit from China's recent economic boom.
It is widely believed that the Nationalists' Ma Ying-jeou's March 22 presidential election victory was largely due to his promises to forge better trade ties with the mainland in a bid to bolster Taiwan's economy.
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