Wu Poh-hsiung to meet Hu today

In a speech at the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the former capital of the Republic of China, Wu echoed Beijing’s line that both sides of the Taiwan Strait are part of a single nation.

“Both sides,” Wu said, “are tied by blood to the Chinese nation which no one can obliterate.” “This is the best of proof that both sides of the Strait are looking squarely at history,” he added.

His visit to the mausoleum symbolizes the lineal descent of the Kuomintang in Taiwan from Dr. Sun, founder of the Chinese republic.

Sun was the founder of the Kuomintang that toppled the Manchu Qing dynasty in a revolution in 1911. The government of the Republic of China was founded in Nanjing on January 1, 1912.

After paying homage to Dr. Sun, Wu wrote in eulogy to the founder of the Kuomintang: “The world is for all, all is for people” or “Tian xia wei gong, Ren-min zui da.”

Accompanied by a 16-member high power Kuomintang delegation, Wu arrived in Nanjing via Hong Kong on Monday for a five-day tour of China.

They were received by Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Office of the State Council. “The sun shines again after the rain,” Chen said in welcoming Wu and his delegation from Taiwan.

From Nanjing Wu and his delegation proceeded to Beijing in the afternoon. Wu met Jia Qinglin, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, at the Diaoyutai Hall in Beijing in the evening as a warm-up for his talks with Hu, who doubles as general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Prior to the meeting, the Wu delegation will visit the Olympics site in Beijing in the morning.

With the support of President Ma Ying-jeou, Wu is in Beijing to help build mutual trust, strengthen cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party and get dialogue jump-started across the Strait.

In particular, Wu wishes to persuade his Chinese Communist Party counterpart to agree to get direct charter flights started between Taiwan and China at weekends on July 4.

Ma promised in the run-up to the March 22 presidential election that the weekend flights would start and Chinese tourists would be allowed to visit Taiwan in July.

One main purpose of the Wu visit to China is to help Ma keep his campaign promises.

According to the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po, Hu has decided to let Chinese tourists visit Taiwan on Independence Day of the United States.

The first batch of Chinese tourists, the Hong Kong paper said, would leave for Taiwan on July 4. The decision will be formalized in talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait.

Kao Koong-lian, SEF secretary-general, said he is “optimistic” about the direct cross-Strait weekend charter flights getting under way according to schedule.

“We haven’t received word from our counterpart in China,” Kao said. “We are certain they would let us know,” he added.

Taiwan’s airline companies, on the other hand, are complaining that the Mainland Affairs Council has decided to let them make only 14 charter flights non-stop between Taiwan and China a week.

Representatives of six carriers met in a special meeting of the Taipei Airlines Association in the morning to demand that they be allowed to make at least 48 weekly flights.

“Eighteen flights a week aren’t enough to meet the demand,” said Su Hung-yi, president of the association. “We don’t know how such a decision has been made,” he protested.

He complained that his association was not consulted on the optimum number of non-stop flights across the strait at weekends.

“At least 48 flights a week are needed to ferry all the passengers,” Su said.

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