Wu to meet Hu on Wednesday

Wu is scheduled to leave for Hong Kong en route to Nanjing today on a five-day tour of China to lay the ground for an early start of cross-strait dialogue, his spokesman said yesterday.

He will be accompanied by a high-power Kuomintang delegation. Two Kuomintang vice chairmen, John Kuan and Lin Feng-cheng, are on the delegation.

The Wu delegation will stop over at Hong Kong to change planes. China has offered a special plane to take Wu and his delegation to Nanjing.

Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Office of the State Council, will welcome the Wu delegation at Nanjing. Wu will visit the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing tomorrow.

He and his delegation will leave Nanjing for Beijing tomorrow night.

On Wednesday morning, the delegation will visit the Olympics sites at Beijing.

The Wu-Hu meeting is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., Wu's spokesman said. Hu meets Wu in his capacity as general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Their one-hour talk is aimed at ironing out differences to get dialogue between Taiwan and China, suspended since 1999, started as soon as practicable.

President Ma Ying-jeou promised in the run-up to the election on March 22 that weekend direct flights on weekends would begin in July. Chinese tourists will be allowed to visit Taiwan at the same time.

Negotiations have to take place to finalize the arrangements, but Ma's appointment of Lai Shing-yuan as chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council has made Beijing hesitate to start talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait.

The two organizations are charged with the conduct of relations between Taiwan and China.

With the full support of President Ma, Wu is expected to dispel any concern in Beijing that Taipei may change course in China policy.

After the meeting, Wu will hold a press conference, his spokesman said.

On Thursday, the Wu delegation will proceed from Beijing to Shanghai, where the Kuomintang chairman will meet with Taiwan business leaders in China.

Wu will visit the Daque shi Buddhist temple at Yixing in the province of Jiangsu on Friday to pray for the victims of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan.

The delegation will return to Taipei on Saturday. 

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