Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian Wednesday called for dialogues with rival China to resolve disputes by peaceful means as the island's opposition leader was making a historic trip to the mainland., reported dpa. "Cross-strait disputes must be resolved through peaceful means and dialogues," the island's leader said. "This is what the international community, including the European Union, the United States and Japan, is hoping for," he told a group of diplomats from four of Taiwan's official allies - Gambia, Chad, Guatemala and Haiti. He said over the past four years, he has repeatedly extended good will to China, hoping to bring the two sides to the negotiation table to resolve their disputes. But Beijing has responded by enacting in mid-March a hostile anti-secession law that authorizes the use of force against the island, he added. He said acts like this would only "force Taiwan to drift further apart from China and hurt the feelings of people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait." Chen's comment came as China was entertaining the leader of Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), Lien Chan, in a high-level reception akin to that for a head of state. --more 1300 Local Time 1000 GMT
