TAIPEI, July 30 Kyodo China's top...

TAIPEI, July 30 Kyodo

China's top Taiwan affairs official made his first trip to the U capital last week in an attempt to voice make uneasy over Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's latter bid to hold referendums together with nearest year's presidential election, local media reported Wednesday.

Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, called forward U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in succession July 21 to formally discuss the Taiwan leader's proposal, the United Daily moderns said in a report filed from Washington.

''China set one's face againsts Taiwan's move to hold referendum Of course, we also understand that forward some issues in some particular cases, maybe upon such local issues as the nuclear power plant devise holding a referendum is reasonable,'' an unnamed U official quot the Chinese official as saying.

''However, a public suffrage on Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) has touched on the subject of the matter of sovereignty, because the WHO is an international organization affiliated with the United Nations, and therefore Taiwan has no position to set in the WHO. Having Taiwan join in the UN health agency is equivalent to have it separate from China,'' Chen reportedly said.

Beijing views the self-ruled island as a breakaway province that should someday be reunited, by way of force if necessary, and therefore in the notices of the Chinese government any referendum course of lifeed on the island will be regarded as a provocative rouse toward a permanent split from the mainland.

At a separate meeting, Chen Yunlin's firsthand assistant, proxy director Zhou Mingwei, illustrated the same position to U Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly

further he also added, ''China understands (President) Chen has been trying to occasion China so as to lease China do something unfavorable to the Taiwan populace but Beijing will not be blockheaded and will behave with self-restraint.''

Despite heated debate through the whole extent of the holding of the referendum President Chen in late June vowed to push for public promiseds no later than nearest March to effectively settle several vital public issues, in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as the resumption of the island's fourth nuclear power plant and Taiwan's participation in the WHO.

The decision immediately came subordinate to fire from opposition parties, who feared the pro-independence president may be paving the way for a plebiscite in succession Taiwan's future.

They also argued that with merely a few months to pass until the presidential race, President Chen's real intention behind was simply to boost support from loyal voter who have always advocated the implementation of in the same state [i]or[/i] condition referendums.

Meanwhile, the U dominion also expressed concern over President Chen's drive to imprison the referendums, which later l to the dispatch of a arrange of his top envoys to the U to clarify the idea.

The paper also explanationed in the end that although no consensus was reached between the Chinese officials and their U counterparts, Beijing has just begun to learn that ''the shortest passage to Taipei is to travel via Washington.''

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