Taiwan's new SEF chief makes first visit to mainland

Lin Join-sane, Taiwan's new top negotiator on cross-Strait affairs, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday morning to kick off his first visit to the Chinese mainland.

Lin, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman, is leading a 13-member delegation. He will meet with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi and his mainland counterpart Chen Yunlin.

According to his schedule, Lin will pay a visit to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's cenotaph at suburb Beijing.

He will leave the capital city to visit Wudang Mountain, a world-renown Taoist holy site, in central China's Hubei Province on Thursday.

On Friday afternoon, Lin will fly to Shanghai. Over the weekend, he will visit the city of Kunshan in Jiangsu Province and meet with business executives from Taiwan.

The Taiwan-based SEF on Sept. 27 accepted the resignation of its chairman, Chiang Pin-kung, and elected Lin as its new head.

Lin, 68, has previously served as secretary general of the Kuomintang party and of Taiwan's executive authority body. He has also held roles as a member of the board of directors and of the supervisory committee of the SEF.

The SEF, founded in 1990 and the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), founded in 1991, are the non-governmental organizations authorized by Taiwan and the mainland to engage in talks regarding cross-Strait issues.