China offers Taipei incentives

BEIJING -- Beijing proposed economic sweeteners for Taiwan last night in a meeting with the island's opposition Nationalist Party, which once ruled all of China, to soften the blow of a law that mandates war.

The antisecession law, passed March 14, has backfired diplomatically. Hundreds of thousands took to Taipei's streets Saturday in protest, and the European Union may delay lifting its arms embargo on China, which has claimed Taiwan as its own since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Chiang Pin-kung, vice chairman of the Nationalist Kuomintang, arrived in Beijing on the third leg of an official trip to the mainland, the KMT's first since 1949, and said his aim was to ease the tension created by the law.

''There is no door of communication between the two sides," KMT spokesman Chang Jung-kung said during a news conference. ''We are playing the role of bridge-building."

China refuses to deal with Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, and his independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP. The KMT favors the eventual reunification with a democratic China.

Officials from China's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office emerged from a meeting with Chiang and his delegation at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing and announced a series of agreements.

''We hope this will be an ice-breaking visit that will break the stalemate," Chiang said in a predinner speech.

''We also hope that through our efforts, the two sides can resume dialogue."

China was drafting preferential policies for fruit and vegetable imports from Taiwan, He Shizhong, director of the economic bureau of the Taiwan Affairs Office, told reporters.

In the late night meeting, China's delegates pledged support and assistance for Taiwan's farmers to invest in five provinces.

China was willing to sign a pact to protect Taiwan's investment on the mainland, Chinese and Taiwan officials said.

Despite the tension, Taiwan investors have poured up to $100 billion into China and clamored for direct passenger and cargo flights, banned by Taiwan since 1949 because of security fears and currently routed mainly through Hong Kong.

China and the KMT agreed to push for further nonstop chartered passenger flights during holidays, as well as cargo charter flights, the officials said.

In Taipei, the DPP accused the Nationalists of selling out the island.

Chiang defended his trip, saying the KMT is willing to do what Chen's government is unable, or unwilling, to do.