CHINESE President Hu Jintao is expected to deliver a major speech on Taiwan when he celebrates the fifth anniversary of the setting up of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Dec 20.

According to sources, he will focus on the ""one country, two systems'' formula for unification with Taiwan even though the
latter has long rejected it.

A source said a team was working on the details of his speech, a highlight of the celebrations to mark the return of the former Portuguese colony to China under precisely that formula.

This will be the first time that President Hu spells out in full his thinking on Taiwan as, to date, his public remarks on the
subject have been less than comprehensive.

According to the source, the Chinese leader has chosen Macau instead of Hong Kong as the venue to make his pitch at Taiwan because of the former's success as a unification model.

Formulated by the late patriarch leader Deng Xiaoping, the ""one country, two systems'' model was meant for Taiwan, but was first applied in Hong Kong in 1997, and then Macau in 1999.

However, post-1997 Hong Kong has yet to prove the model a success. Its economy suffered its worst decline in history, while political freedom was seen to be shrinking.

More than half a million people took to the streets on July 1, in two consecutive years, to vent their frustration with the SAR
government.

In sharp contrast, post-1999 Macau is doing much better with double-digit growth over the past five years in gross domestic
product, official revenue as well as takings by the gaming industry, the mainstay of the Macau economy.

But President Hu's words are likely to fall on deaf ears in Taiwan.

A Taiwanese official who prefers not be identified said flatly:"" No matter what Hu is going to say, Taiwan will not accept the
model because it pre-supposes a subservient status for Taiwan. ""This resistance cuts across party line and is Taiwan's biggest political consensus.''