China condemns attack on its official in Taiwan

TAIPEI/BEIJING-China on Tuesday condemned an attack on one of its officials visiting Taiwan who was pushed to the ground by anti-China activists, handing him a second day of abuse ahead of a visit by Beijing's top negotiator.Protesters pushed over Zhang Mingqing, vice chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, leaving him lying on the ground in the city of Tainan, his glasses lying at his side, television pictures showed.Later an activist climbed on to Zhang's car and stomped on it.The association had written to its Taiwan counterpart to express its "strong indignation and severe condemnation" of the incident, the official Xinhua news agency said."We are astonished at this," it cited the letter as saying.Taiwan must guarantee Zhang's safety and make sure there are no repeats, the letter added.China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has vowed to bring the island back under its rule, by force if necessary."I strongly condemn the violence," Taiwan's top negotiator on China policy, P.K. Chiang, told a news conference. "We want people to be more rational when others come from mainland China."On Monday, about 200 demonstrators used expletives, yelling for Zhang to return to China when he took the podium at the Tainan National University of the Arts.
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