Taiwan to send 270 delegates for cross-strait forum in China

Taipei - Taiwan will send 270 delegates to a high-profile two-day forum in China this weekend to discuss cultural and educational exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, senior officials said Thursday. Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the ruling Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT), will lead the group to Changsha in the Chinese province of Hunan Friday for the Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum - its fifth since the KMT mended fences with the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2005. In a pre-departure meeting with the delegation Thursday, President Ma Ying-jeou said the forum is a must despite a boycott by the pro-independence camp in Taiwan as it 'provides a platform for exchanges and communication between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.' He said the forum should not be seen as a summit between the KMT and the CPC, and he hoped the pro-independence camp could stop its boycott and send delegates to the event. Insisting that the forum was a platform for the KMT and CPC to discuss their own interests, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has refused to send delegates to the meeting. On Wednesday, the DPP even announced that it would punish any of its officials - regardless of whether they were retired or not - with disciplinary actions if they defied the DPP ban. DPP acting spokesman Chao Tien-lin said Thursday there was no need for the pro-independence party to stump for the forum. KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung Thursday said other parties, including the People First Party and the New Party, have sent delegates to join the KMT in the two-day forum to begin on Saturday. The forum was first held in Beijing following a historic visit to China by former KMT chairman Lien Chan in 2005, during which the KMT mended fences with its long-time political rival CPC. The reconciliation of the two parties finally paved the way for warming cross-strait relations after Ma became president in May last year and adopted a policy to engage China. Taiwan and China had been rivals since they split at the end of a civil war in 1949.