|
Lien Chan arrives in Beijing
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-04-28 09:07
Chairman Lien Chan of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China arrived
in Beijing at about 11:10 Thursday to continue his eight-day mainland visit.
Visiting Chairman of the
Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China Lien Chan delivers a speech upon his
arrival at the Beijing Capital International Airport Thursday April 28,
2005. Lien said it is the "common aspiration" of the people from both
sides of the Taiwan Straits to build a peaceful and win-win
future.[newsphoto] | Beijing is the second leg on
his mainland visit itinerary, next to Nanjing, which used to be the capital of
the Republic of China, and followed by Xi'an and Shanghai.
Upon his arrival in Nanjing Tuesday afternoon, Lien said at the
aprons of Nanjing Lukou Airport that his visit to the mainland will be a
"historic first step" for the promotion of cross-Straits relations.
This is the first time that the KMT chairman has set feet on the
mainland since 1949 when the KMT lost a civil war to the Communist Party of
China (CPC) and fled to Taiwan, an island province opposite to eastern coastal
Fujian Province.
Visiting Chairman
of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China Lien Chan waves
to well-wishers upon his arrival at the Beijing
International Airport Thursday April 28, 2005.[newsphoto]
| After warm-ups led by KMT Vice Chairman Chiang
Pin-kung in March, Lien was invited by the CPC Central Committee and General
Secretary Hu Jintao.
The Hu-Lien summit, which was scheduled for Friday, will be the
first of its kind between the CPC and the KMT in nearly six decades.
Late CPC Chairman Mao Zedong and KMT Chairman Chiang Kai-shek
conducted the latest meeting in August 1945 in Chongqing, the wartime capital of
China, in a bid to negotiate a truce. The two sides failed to clinch a formal
peace till now.
Lien's mainland visit was described by the KMT as a "journey of
peace".
In a speech after paying homage to Dr. Sun Yat-sen
(1886-1925),founding father of the KMT Wednesday morning, Lien said the two
sides across the Straits should strive to achieve common prosperity in a
peaceful and going-all-out mentality against the backdrop of the current
"stalemate".
Besides Nanjing and Beijing, Lien was scheduled to visit
Xi'an,where he was born on the eve of the invasion of the Japanese troops, and
Shanghai, the biggest financial and trade hub in the mainland.
|
