Cross-Straits relations could plunge into crisis if Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian abolishes the island's council and guidelines on unification with the mainland, researchers warn.

Professor Li Yihu of Peking University said Chen's plan to dissolve the council and the guidelines has exposed his intensified secessionist push before his final term ends in 2008.

The ongoing scheme is only an initial step towards Chen's goal to legitimize Taiwan "independence," he added.

"If Chen really dismantles the council and the guidelines, cross-Straits tension will be fuelled," Li said on Friday. "It will bring the Taiwan Straits into a crisis status."

Taiwanese media are speculating that Chen could announce the scrapping of the council and the guidelines as early as Tuesday or possibly mid-March.

Chen's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party voted on Thursday to endorse abolishing the guidelines.

Li Weiyi, spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, reiterated on Friday that the mainland is following the developments closely.

"We firmly oppose any pro-independence activities in any form," he told a regular news conference. "We will see what his next step and his intention are."

The spokesman denied that Taipei has sent a secret envoy to the mainland on the issue, saying he has no information about such a trip.

Li said he expected Chen to forge ahead with his "constitutional re-engineering" project aimed at "de jure independence" for Taiwan after abolishing the council and guidelines.

Since 2004, Chen has unveiled a timetable to write a new "constitution" for the island in 2006 and enact the document in 2008.

Responding to Chen's insistence on the plan to dismantle the council and the guidelines, the United Sates has urged Taipei not to endanger stability in the region.

"American policy on cross-strait issues is firm and unchanging: Our strong desire is that Taiwan's policy not depart from that strong foundation (of peace)," David Keegan, acting director of the American Institute in Taiwan, told a dinner hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.

"It has served us and the Taiwanese people very well over the past decades."

Source: China Daily