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Updated Monday, November 3, 2008 9:25 am TWN, The China Post news staff

ARATS’ Chen Yunlin to arrive in Taipei today

Concertina-wired chevaux de-rise in front of the Grand Hotel in Taipei. The barricade was set up yesterday to fend off protesting crowds who may get close to Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait, and his 60-member delegation. They are scheduled to arrivesing the envoy. (CNA)

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ARATS’ Chen Yunlin to arrive in Taipei today

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- China's top negotiator with Taiwan is arriving in Taipei today amidst a din of protest against his visit and President Ma Ying-jeou's Beijing-leaning policy.

Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), is scheduled to arrive at Taoyuan International Airport around 11:30 a.m. to a muted welcome by Kao Koong-lian, vice chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).

P. K. Chiang is SEF chairman, who will sign four agreements with Chen to shorten direct air routes, start direct maritime shipping and mail service across the Strait, and prevent contaminated food exports from China to Taiwan.

Democratic Progressive Party protesters and Tibetan independence activists are expected to lay siege to the airport, where security is tightened and traffic strictly controlled.

Many of them are threatening to throw rotten eggs at the ARATS chairman and delegates. Awards are offered to anyone who hits Chen. One whose egg hits Chen's face will be given NT$1,000. Those who hit Chen's body with eggs will each be awarded NT$200.

That is why Chen does not plan to make an arrival statement at the airport. He will deliver it at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, where he and his 60-member delegation will stay for four days until Friday.

At 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, Chen will pay a visit to Mrs. Cecilia Koo, the widow of the late SEF chairman C.F. Koo. It will be a sentimental visit, for Chen is making it on behalf of Wang Daohan, the late ARATS chairman.

Koo and Wang met in Shanghai in 1998. From Shanghai Koo proceeded to Beijing, where he met Jiang Zeming, the then president of the People's Republic. Koo invited Wang to visit Taipei and the latter accepted.

But Wang couldn't make the visit, because President Lee Teng-hui put an end to the Taipei-Beijing detente in 1999 by adopting a new China policy. He defined the relationship as one "between a country and another country."

President Lee's "two-country doctrine" froze relations between the two sides of the Strait, which continued and got worse in the eight years that followed while Chen Shui-bian ruled Taiwan.

The Chen visit to Taipei officially marks a thaw in relations between Taiwan and China after Ma Ying-jeou took place on May 20 on pledges to improve the economy by a new detente with China.

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