Taipei - Taiwan's president-elect Ma Ying-jeou on Monday picked a woman with a pro-independence background as his China policy maker, triggering fears that her nomination will hurt Taipei-Beijing ties.

In his release of the the names of the second batch of cabinet members, Ma named 16 cabinet posts, including defence, education and and sports minister.

The new cabinet will be sworn in on May 20 when Ma is inaugurated, replacing President Chen Shui-bian who will step down after having served two four-year terms.

However, the naming of La Hsin-yuan as chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which designs politics towards China, triggered concern from the public because of her background as being a member of pro-independence former president Lee Teng-hui's political party the Taiwan Solidarity Union.

During his term as president from 1988-2000, Lee advocated Taiwan's seeking formal independence from China, causing China to halt Beijing-Taipei dialogue, hold two war games and fire missiles into Taiwan waters.

Members of the pro-unification Patriotic Association held a street protest against the naming of Lai, and even members of Ma's Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) questioned the wisdom of his choosing Lai as the China policy designer.

"This is very provocative to China, just like eating pork in front of a Moslem," KMT lawmaker Chang Hsien-yao said.

But Lai promised that she would respect Ma's China policy, promote exchanges with China and would stop participating in Taiwan Solidarity Union's activities.

Ma won the March 22 presidential election with a landslide victory on his platform to seek peace with China.

Ma's honeymoon with China has already begun as Taiwan's vice president-elect Vincent Siew met with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Bo'ao Forum early this month and KMT's honorary chairman Lien Chan flew to China Monday to meet Hu, their 4th meeting since 2005.

Lien and Hu will jointly launch a sculpture at the Olympic Park in Beijing on Tuesday and Hu reportedly will hold a banquet for Lien Tuesday evening. (dpa)