Wu and his delegation were warmly welcomed by Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Affairs Council under China's State Council, upon arriving at Changsha's Huanghua Airport aboard a chartered flight operated by the Xiamen Airlines.

The delegation was made up of representatives from various political parties, government agencies as well as the academic and industrial sectors.

Wu said at the Huanghua Airport that it took two hours and 20 minutes for the delegation to fly from Taipei directly to Changsha, sharply down from some six hours needed four years ago, when Wu visited Changsha. "Both sides of the Taiwan Straits should cherish such an achievement scored as a result of peaceful development of cross-strait ties over the past year," Wu continued.

Wu said that the main purpose of the Taiwan delegation is to attend the fifth cross-strait forum on economic and cultural exchanges, which was jointly launched by Chairman Hu Jintao of the Chinese Communist Party and Honorary Chairman Lien Chan of the Kuomintang in 2005.

Prior to his departure earlier in the morning, Wu also told reporters before boarding a chartered flight at Taipei's Songshan Airport that the topics of the forum -- the fifth of its kind -- will focus on education and culture.

Both sides will exchange views on how to preserve and ensure the continuation of Chinese culture while trying to innovate, Wu said, noting that other topics on agendas will include cross-strait cooperation in the promotion of the culture industry and cross-strait educational exchanges.

The KMT head also noted that President Ma Ying-jeou has expressed hope that the two sides can work together to compile a new, more comprehensive Chinese dictionary.

Wu reiterated that the forum, which began as an annual meeting between the KMT and the CCP, is no longer limited to KMT and CCP participants, noting that fewer than 25 percent of this year's delegation are KMT members.The KMT has long been hoping that the forum can serve as a platform for exchanges on a wide spectrum of opinions from different sectors, Wu added.

Members of the delegation include opposition People First Party Secretary-General Chin Ching-sheng, opposition New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming and non-partisan Solidarity Union Chairman Lin Pin-kuan.

Worth mentioning is that Fan Cheng-chung, former chairman of the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture under the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, and Hsu Jung-shu, a former DPP lawmaker, also departed for Changsha to attend the forum, in defiance of threats of disciplinary action from the DPP, which insists that the forum is between the KMT and the CCP and that its members should therefore not attend.

Before the departure, Fang, who is now a national policy advisor to President Ma ying-jeou, said many people in Taiwan have criticized the ruling KMT for having "sold Taiwan out" by increasing engagements with Beijing.

"I want to take a look there (China) to find out whether the KMT has indeed sold Taiwan out," Fan said.

Facing criticism and a warning issued by the DPP authorities, who threatened the day before to discipline Fan and Hsu if they went ahead with their plan to attend the forum, Fan said Taiwan will not be annexed by China simply because he and Hsu attend a forum.

Hsu noted that the forum is set to tackle a wide range of topics, including economic and cultural issues, making it an excellent platform for opinion exchanges between Taiwan and China, and said she did not believe the DPP leadership would act on its threat of disciplinary action.

Also yesterday, Vice Chairman Chao Chien-ming of the Mainland Affairs Council said that the cross-strait forum on economic and cultural exchanges should be regarded as a party-to-party forum, and can hardly affect policy decision-making by the government.