China official reaches out to Taiwan

BEIJING, Mar 3 (Reuters) A top Chinese Communist Party official promised today to press for reunification between mainland China and Taiwan but avoided threatening rhetoric in a keynote speech.

''Resolutely oppose and contain Taiwan separatist forces and their activities, and protect and promote the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations,'' Jia Qinglin told the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a largely symbolic advisory council that meets once a year.

Beijing says reunifying with Taiwan is a supreme national goal and rejects any possibility of full independence for the self-governed island that fell away from mainland control after Nationalist forces fled there in 1949.

Taiwan will hold an election in 2008 to choose a successor to President Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence steps have infuriated Beijing. Hoping that a candidate favouring eventual reunification will be elected, Beijing has been choosing its words about Taiwan with great care.

China has repeatedly said it will not rule out using armed force if Taiwan opts for full independence, but Jia avoided such language in his speech before hundreds of officially-approved academics, artists and members of minor parties that support the Communist Party.

Jia, a member of the ruling Communist Party's inner circle whose reputation has been shadowed by widespread claims of past corruption, said China wanted relations with Taiwan to ''develop in a peaceful and stable direction.'' Jia did not mention corruption in his speech, which lauded the advisory body as ''a distinctively Chinese form of democracy''.

''We must complete all our tasks with a heightened sense of political responsibility and high morale,'' he said.

On Monday, China's national parliament also begins its annual session.

REUTERS SP PM1542