BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao offered on Monday to enter into negotiations with Taiwan to reach a peace agreement in an overture to the self-ruled island which China claims as its own.
Addressing the opening of the Communist Party's 17th Congress, Hu warned the democratic island against formally declaring independence, but did not take the opportunity to threaten force as predecessors have in the past.
"We would like to make a solemn appeal: on the basis of the one-China principle let us discuss a formal end to the state of hostility between the two sides (and) reach a peace agreement," Hu said, reading from a prepared statement.
China has offered in the past to resume talks with Taiwan, frozen since 1999 when then-Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui insisted that bilateral relations be described as "special state to state" which would imply that Taiwan was a separate country.
China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their split in 1949 when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Nationalists fled to the island.
"We are ready to conduct exchanges, dialogue, consultations and negotiations with any political party in Taiwan on any issue as long as it recognises that both sides of the Straits belong to one and the same China," Hu said, referring to Taiwan's ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.
In Taipei, the government's Mainland Affairs Council said it was willing to meet but not if Hu insists that Taiwan is part of China or continues to govern China under one-party rule.
"We hope to meet with China at an early date to discuss democratic development," the council said in a statement. "But (Hu's) political report lacks any real democratic reform, and the whole country's power is grasped in the hands of Communist Party dictators."
The China point man with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party China cautiously welcomed the overture.
