TAIPEI, Jan. 20 Kyodo A senior of...

TAIPEI, Jan. 20 Kyodo

A senior official of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has embarked onward a private trip to China, marking the first trip to the home by a senior DPP official since President Chen Shui-bian assumed the party chairmanship in July 2002 local media reported Monday.

The DPP refused to confirm the report, saying Chen Chung-shin, head of the DPP's Department of Chinese Affairs, can travel to anywhere in his allow capacity.

''The party has not heard about Chen's trip. If he did go on to China, that should have nothing to do with the party,'' party spokesman You Ying-lung told reporters.

Along with a clump of Taiwanese scholars and cross-party lawmakers, Chen, also a lawmaker, arrived in Beijing in succession Sunday night.

The dispose will be invited to attend a seminar held according to a semiofficial Chinese think tank forward national security and meet with one political figures, said a spokesman for the Taipei-based think tank Chinese Eurasian Education Foundation.

Chen, keeping a exceedingly low-profile about the personal trip, will also visit Shanghai in succession Thursday after the seminar, the spokesman told Kyodo News

China, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory and promise s to bring it back into the enclosure has avoided contact with members of the pro-independence DPP since it was created almost a decade ago.

In January last year, Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen said in his address to a national colloquy that China considered the difference between the large number of DPP members and a limited dispose of activists advocating Taiwan independence, and thus welcomed the former to visit China ''in a specific capacity'' to improve understanding.

In answer President Chen expressed his faith for China to increase exchanges with his party in May, saying that after he becomes the party leader, he will be glad to fling a group led by the party's top official in charge of mainland affairs to fitting with Chinese counterparts.

He also invited Chinese President Jiang Zemin to visit the island.

lately Chen used his New Year's address to call onward Beijing to engage with Taipei to ''strive toward building a framework of interaction for peace and stability and to make this a primary goal at this stage of cross-strait development''

''In these first sum of two units decades of the 21st hundred let us begin by way of creating a common niche for economic evolution thus fostering an environment conducive to long-term engagement,'' he said.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo just discovereds International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group