Associated Press

Shanghai, May 8:

Ahead of a meeting with China’s president Hu Jintao, Taiwanese opposition politician James Soong said today he was opposed to moves by his island toward formal independence from China in comments that are sure to please the Beijing leadership.

“Taiwan’s independence will bring war and disaster,” Soong told a group of Taiwanese business executives in Shanghai. “What we want are factories and markets, not battlefields.”

Soong, who is head of the Taiwanese opposition People First Party, is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao later this week in Beijing.

His visit is part of China’s efforts to contain Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian, whose party supports formal independence for the self-ruled island.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to attack if Taiwan makes its

de facto independence permanent.

Taiwan and China should “replace enmity with dialogue,” Soong told the business leaders.

Business ties between China and Taiwan are surging even as political ties remain strained.

Taiwanese companies have invested about $100 billion in China since the early 1990s, in everything from agriculture to hi-tech.

Soong’s trip closely follows a visit by Lien Chan, head of Taiwan’s main opposition Nationalist Party.

Lien had met Hu on April 29, in the highest-level contact between Taiwan and China since the two sides split in 1949 amid civil war. Unity has been a strong theme during Soong’s visit, which began on Thursday in Xi’an, an ancient imperial capital.

Minutes after he set foot on the tarmac at Xi’an airport, Soong promptly denounced Taiwan independence.

He also visited Nanjing, another former Chinese capital, before travelling to Shanghai where he met Sunday with the top Chinese envoy for Taiwan affairs — Wang Daohan, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. He is accompanied by his wife, Viola Chen.