Beijing - China and Taiwan opened their fifth cross-Strait economic, trade and cultural forum Saturday with both sides stressing its importance in building on a recent warming in ties. Wang Yi, head of the Taiwan Work Office of China's ruling Communist Party, said holding the forum in the southern Chinese city of Changsha was "in line with the common aspirations of people in the mainland and Taiwan," state media reported.
Wu Poh-hsiung - chairman of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT) - said such exchanges played a "key role in making further and substantial breakthroughs in mainland-Taiwan relations."
China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Wu as saying the forum was of "historic and practical significance."
Jia Qinglin, one of the Communist Party's senior leaders, urged people on both sides to "contribute to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," the agency said.
Jia said the delegates should "maintain their shared Chinese cultural inheritance, cement spiritual ties, strengthen their sense of identity to the Chinese nation and work together to promote the international influence of the Chinese culture."
About 530 politicians, scholars and business people are attending the two-day forum, including about 270 from Taiwan.
Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) refused to send delegates to Changsha, criticizing the forum as a another move toward unification between China and Taiwan.
"The KMT wants Taiwan and China to jointly compile a Chinese language dictionary, and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] announced that Beijing will allow Taiwan students to attend Chinese universities," DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan said in Taipei.
"This will give people the impression that the two sides are moving toward cultural unification," Cheng argued.
Cheng said the DPP would discipline two DPP members who are attending the forum despite the party's ban on participation.
In a pre-departure meeting with the delegation Thursday, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said the forum was necessary because it "provides a platform for exchanges and communication between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait."
The forum was first held in Beijing after a visit to China by former KMT chairman Lien Chan in 2005.
The reconciliation of the two parties finally paved the way for warming cross-strait relations after Ma became president in May 2008 and adopted a policy to engage China.
Taiwan and China had been rivals since they split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
