CHINESE President Hu Jintao's decision to send two senior officials to Taipei to attend the funeral of Taiwan's top cross-strait envoy Koo Chen-fu is another example of Beijing's dual approach towards the island.

The two officials are Mr Sun Yafu, deputy director of the Chinese Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) and vice-president of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (Arats), and Mr Li Yafei, a TAO bureau chief and Arats secretary-general.

They will serve as Arats chairman Wang Daohan's personal envoys to the funeral.

This Taiwan trip will also make the two men the most senior Chinese officials to visit the island since 1999.

Mr Wang had planned to visit Taiwan in 1999 but scrapped the plan after Taiwan's then-president Lee Teng-hui infuriated Beijing by redefining ties as ""special state-to-state'' relations.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which formulates the island's policy towards China, said the two Chinese officials would arrive today and leave after the funeral tomorrow.

This can be seen as yet another gesture of friendship that President Hu is extending to Taipei.

Since early this year, he has already shown his goodwill twice, by consenting to the first cross-strait direct charter flights in 55 years and by showing his willingness to disregard Taiwan's separatist President's past rhetoric and actions and to deal with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

The latest move is evident of Mr Hu's ""soft hand'' approach to the thorny Taiwan independence problem. Indeed the seniority of Mr Sun a vice-minister surprised observers on both sides of the strait and they regarded this as a rare show of Chinese amity.

Before, people saw only Mr Hu's ""hard hand''.

At his first meeting with senior military leaders after taking over the top military post last September, he urged them to be
prepared for military struggle against Taiwan.

Then he alarmed Taiwan by announcing his plan to enact an anti-secession law, which tries to define China's tolerance limit on Taipei's lurch towards independence.

But now, Mr Hu has begun to reach out to Taiwan with a soft approach.

By sending the two envoys to Taipei, Beijing is also highlighting the importance it attaches to a 1992 consensus.

The so-called ""1992 consensus'' was the most significant success achieved by Arats chairman Wang and Mr Koo, who headed Taipei's Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF).

Under the consensus, both sides agreed to uphold the one-China principle but left the definition of China up to their own
interpretation.

This consensus, reached in Hong Kong, led to the successful meeting between Mr Koo and Mr Wang in Singapore in 1993, which marked the first senior-level meeting between the two sides since 1949.

But China has suspended all cross-strait talks since 1999 when former president Lee proclaimed his ""two states theory'' just weeks ahead of the planned visit to Taipei by Mr Wang.

A recent TAO statement praised Mr Koo lavishly for his contribution in hammering out the 1992 consensus and in respecting and upholding it throughout his life.

When President Chen Shui-bian denied categorically any consensus on ""one China'', Mr Koo time and again advised him against doing so, in his capacity as a witness of this accord.

For instance, he told Mr Chen that the most valuable thing about the 1992 consensus was that both sides found a way to shelve their political differences and that it was Beijing which had accepted Taipei's version of the definition of cross-strait relations.

Mr Koo also confirmed that it was due to Beijing's concession in accepting the Taiwanese formulation that made the talks in Singapore possible.

It now remains to be seen whether Beijing's series of goodwill gestures can bring about a resumption of talks between the SEF and Arats.