Taiwan Asks China to Receive Envoy

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The government Friday spurned China’s invitation for a senior negotiator to visit the Communist mainland and raised the political stakes by urging Beijing to accept a mission by Taiwan’s top cross-strait envoy.

If China was to accept the counter-initiative, it would set the scene for the highest-level contacts between the ideological rivals since 1993, when a breakthrough encounter in Singapore ended four decades of frosty estrangement.

Initial indications were that China was unwilling to comply.

In a report from Beijing, Taiwan’s state-funded Central News Agency quoted unidentified officials as saying the mainland side had informally said no, though there was no formal reply.

Taiwan’s state-funded Straits Exchange Foundation thanked Beijing for inviting its vice chairman, Chiao Jen-ho, to a December seminar on China-Taiwan business and investment links but said it would prefer to send its chairman, Koo Chen-fu.

Prime Minister Vincent Siew told parliament that the offer to send 80-year-old Koo, a billionaire tycoon and trusted Nationalist Party insider, indicated Taipei’s sincere desire to end the impasse.