New leadership of Taiwan Students Association elected

The Taiwan Students Association, on the mainland, held its 10th congress here on Friday, with Lin Shengzhong re-elected as chairman of the board of directors and Wu Guozhen as deputy chairman.

The meeting also approved a work report by the 9th board of directors and an amendment of the association's chart.

Liu Yandong, vice chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of the United Front Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made a key-note speech at the congress.

The association was set up in 1981 by a group of Taiwan students who moved to the mainland. Over the past 25 years, the association has united Taiwan intellectuals who have been engaged in pro-unification activities and made important contributions to the country's modernization drive and peaceful and stable development of cross-straits relations, Liu said.

She called the safeguarding of national sovereignty and territorial integrity as a key interest of the nation. "We firmly oppose 'Taiwan independence' and will never allow "Taiwan independence" forces to separate Taiwan from the motherland under any name and in any form," she stressed.

Source: Xinhua