The second Taiwanese opposition leader to visit China in less than a week arrived Thursday amid a flurry of Chinese efforts to build ties with groups that want to unite Taiwan with the communist mainland. James Soong, head of Taiwan's second-largest opposition party, the People First Party, said he hoped to ease tensions between the two sides, which split in 1949 and have no official relations. Soong began his visit in the western city of Xi'an, an ancient imperial capital, and was to fly to Beijing next week to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Soong was met at the airport by Chen Yunlin, head of the Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office. In an arrival statement, he said "I am here looking for my roots, and I want to build a bridge for the future." The Associated Press said Soong affirmed his party's opposition to Taiwan independence. The party "has always believed that Taiwan independence is not the choice of Taiwanese people," he said. "That is the unshakable stance of our party." Lien Chan, chairman of Taiwan's biggest opposition group, the Nationalist Party, left Tuesday after making the highest-level mainland visit by a Taiwanese political figure since 1949. Lien met Hu last week in the first contact in decades between the two factions whose civil war split China.
