Key Chinese Official to Visit, Paper Says

A senior Chinese official will visit Taiwan later this month, a newspaper reported, in the clearest sign yet that Beijing is planning to resume talks with Taipei. Yang Xiaoming, a deputy secretary of Beijing’s semiofficial Assn. for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, will accompany a delegation to Taiwan at mid-month, Taiwan’s China Times Express said. He will attend a conference on environmental management and urban planning at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University in the southern port city of Kaohsiung, it said. In February, Beijing’s chief negotiator for Taiwan, Tang Shubei, will accompany a children’s choir from Beijing.