China's Hu, Taiwan's Lien affirm improved ties+

LIMA, Nov. 22 Kyodo - Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Taiwan Vice President Lien Chan affirmed during talks in Lima on Friday that bilateral relations have improved lately, participants of the meeting said.

It is the first time since Taiwan joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum in 1991 that representatives of China and Taiwan have held a bilateral
meeting on the sidelines of the regional conference.
Hu and Lien are in the Peruvian capital to attend this weekend's APEC forum
summit.
According to the participants, the talks were held at a hotel where the Chinese
delegation was staying, with Hu starting off by calling Lien ''an old friend''
and praising him for efforts to build good cross-strait ties since his days as
a member of an opposition party.
Lien told a press conference after the meeting that he called Hu ''general
secretary,'' referring to the president's post in the Chinese Communist Party.
Though both are representatives of their respective delegations to the APEC
forum, their meeting was regarded as a ''tea ceremony'' between leaders of the
Nationalist Party of Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party, according to
Taiwanese government officials.
''Chairman Lien has made great contributions to relations across the Taiwan
Strait, and the current state of those relations is very good,'' Hu was quoted
in Taiwan media reports as saying to Lien, referring to his previous position
as chairman of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party (KMT).
Lien reportedly lobbied Hu to give Taiwan more international space during the
closed-door portion of the meeting, making good on his previous vows to broach
the prickly issue of Taiwan's wish to participate in the U.N. World Health
Organization.
China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has thwarted for
decades Taiwan's bid to participate in the United Nations and affiliated
agencies. Beijing claims Taipei as part of its territory and frowns on
international space for the self-governed island.
But cross-strait ties have been on an upswing since Taiwanese President Ma
Ying-jeou took office May 20 on vows to improve bilateral relations. The two
sides have kick-started formal negotiations, exchanging high-ranking
delegations that marked milestones in the level and scope of contact between
the rival governments.
Ma hopes Beijing will let Taipei gain observer status in the World Health
Assembly as a by-product of their warming ties.
Some Taiwanese local media depicted Lien's participation at APEC as a sign of
China's willingness to ease off its stance of preventing or rolling back
Taipei's presence at major global forums. Lien, who is representing Ma at APEC,
is the island's highest-ranking former official ever to attend.
China typically blocks APEC envoy candidates from Taiwan whose political
background calls attention to the island's de facto independence. China seeks
to unify Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary.
In fact, Taiwan is the only APEC member whose head of government is barred from
attending, a result of Chinese pressure.
But China's tacit approval of Lien as APEC envoy came as a nod to the island's
identity separate from Beijing, marked by free elections that decide leadership
line-ups.
Lien was vice president under then President Lee Teng-hui from 1996 to 2000, a
period of cross-strait tension, with Beijing bristling at Lee's assertions of
sovereignty.
But Lien is also a luminary in the KMT, which officially supports eventual
unification with China.
Lien's pro-China credentials led to a 2005 breakthrough meeting in Beijing with
Hu when Lien was KMT chairman, the first formal meeting between the chiefs of
the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party since 1949 when the island and mainland
split amid civil war between the KMT and CCP. Hu is both president of China and
general secretary of the CCP.
Lien's delegation also includes current high-level officials, including
Economic Affairs Minister Yin Chi-ming.