Visiting Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) Party Chairman Lien Chan left Beijing for Xi'an, the third leg on his eight-day mainland tour, at around 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Lien was scheduled to visit the primary school that he attended in his childhood and make homage to his grandmother whose tomb is located in Xi'an, of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, before heading for east China's financial hub Shanghai, the last stop on the tour.

Lien was born in Xi'an in August 1936 and left the mainland for Taiwan with his mother in 1946.

Lien, heading a 60-member KMT delegation, also staged a landmark handshake with Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) central committee, in the Great Hall of the People, the first of its kind in 60 years.

Hu and Lien also conducted formal talks and agreed to promote the peaceful and stable development of cross-Straits relations and recreate a win-win situation at the current "critical point" of historical development.

The two parties also reached a consensus on establishing a mechanism for regular party-to-party exchanges in a bid to develop relations across the Taiwan Straits.

After the two-hour-strong meeting, the two parties jointly released a press communique on the "common aspiration and prospects for cross-Straits peace and development."

According to the communique, the Friday meeting between Hu and Lien was of "great historical and realistic significance".

During his stay in Beijing, Lien gave a much hailed speech at the prestigious Beijing University and answered questions from the audience concerning cross-Straits relations.

Before coming to Beijing, the KMT leader and his entourage visited east China's Nanjing City and paid respects at the Mausoleum of the KMT founder Dr. Sun Yat-sen there, for the first time in five decades.

The KMT delegation will left the mainland on May 3 after winding up activities in Shanghai.