Time will 'prove value of event'

TAIPEI: Beijing's top envoy on Taiwan affairs has appealed to the island's opposition parties to support peaceful developments across the Straits.

Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), is the most senior mainland envoy to visit the island since 1949. He held talks with Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), yesterday.

But pro-independence parties, such as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), have organized demonstrations against the visit since Monday, the day Chen reached Taiwan.