Beijing rolls out red carpet for Taiwan investors

Beijing,- China gave red-carpet treatment to Taiwan business leaders on Thursday despite simmering tensions between the governments, a day after Beijing announced the arrest of 24 "spies" from the island.

About 70 mainland-based investors, all heads of Taiwan chambers of commerce in provinces and cities across China, descended on Beijing to attend a one-day closed-door meeting at the invitation of the policymaking Taiwan Affairs Office, delegates said. Delegates were not told the agenda of the impromptu meeting, but were given VIP treatment. \ par

"We were escorted through the airport VIP channel," said one delegate who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They were being hosted at the tightly guarded, walled Diaoyutai State Guest House, a sprawling retreat where Chinese leaders receive visiting foreign dignitaries.

"Our cellphones will be turned off. We won’t be able to take any calls during the meeting," said Hsieh Kun-tsung, president of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.

Analysts said it was not unusual for China to woo Taiwan investors despite tensions and rhetoric as part of efforts to lure the self-ruled, democratic island back to the fold. Despite political tensions, trade and tourism between China and Taiwan have blossomed since detente began in the late 1980s.

Tensions have been simmering over contentious plans by Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian for a referendum next March calling on China to withdraw hundreds of missiles aimed at the island.

The planned referendum was seen by Beijing as a step towards independence and had alarmed Washington, which has warned against any unilateral move by either side to change the status quo.

The meeting came on the heels of the arrest of 24 "spies" from Taiwan and 19 Chinese accomplices, one of the biggestespionage scandals in China’s Communist era.

China’s official Xinhua news agency announced the arrests on Wednesday and said they had confessed, but gave scant details of the accusations against them.

Analysts said China’s rare and swift admission of the espionage could cast Chen as irresponsible and hurt his re-election bid next March.

He came under fire in Taiwan after Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper reported this week that Chinese authorities had swooped on the spy ring after he made public, with pinpoint accuracy, the location of Chinese missiles aimed at the island.

Chen’s spokesman has defended the president, saying it was \ par public information. The Taiwan Defence Ministry’s Military Intelligence Bureau had dismissed the Hong Kong newspaper report, saying nobody had been arrested.

Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other since their split at the end of China’s civil war in 1949. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has vowed to attack the island of 23 million if it formally declares independence.

In the most notorious espionage scandal in China’s Communist era, a major general and a senior colonel were executed in 1999 for spying for Taiwan. Reuters