Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said Friday that the up-coming Taipei-Beijing dialogue is intended to build mutual trust and is vital for Taiwan's survival.

Ma made the remark while receiving the Taiwan delegation ahead of the talks to be held in Nanjing, China, Friday through Saturday.

Ma said that in the past 11 months since he took office, Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China's Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits
(ARATS) have been building mutual trust.

Beijing - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will hold talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing next week, China said Friday, despite a spat over Aso's recent offering to a controversial war shrine.

Aso will visit Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Premier Wen Jiabao, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a brief statement.

Beijing, Apr. 23 : A Chinese government manual has revealed how to beat troublemakers without leaving physical evidence.

Details from the official publication were posted on the Internet by a civil servant and published in one of the country's most daring newspapers.

Taipei- Exiled Chinese dissidents plan to launch a series of activities intended to pressure China to apologize for the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a Taiwan-based Chinese dissident said Thursday.

Wuer Kaixi, one of the student leaders of the 1989 protests who now lives in Taiwan, said the activities would kick off next week and climax on June 3 or June 4 with a news conference in the US capital.

Taipei- Exiled Chinese dissidents will launch a series of campaigns to demand China to apologize for the 1989 massacre of protestors on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a Taiwan-based Chinese dissident said Thursday.

The call comes in the run up to the 20th anniversary of the communist government's bloody crackdown on student protestors on June 4, 1989 - whose full death toll has never been established.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong people are now happier with China's leaders than at any time since the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule 12 years ago, according to a survey Thursday.

Fifty-eight per cent of people interviewed said they were satisfied with the Beijing government's performance, the highest level recorded in the regular polls since the 1997 handover.