Taipei - Taiwan announced Wednesday it will send former vice president Lien Chan to the November 22 leaders' summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 
(APEC) forum.

The announcement was seen as a breakthrough in the island's relations with China, which for years has opposed allowing any prominent Taiwan leader to attend the event, observers said.

"President Ma Ying-jeou has appointed Mr Lien Chan as his representative to the leaders' summit," the Presidential Office said in a statement.

Lien, honorary chairman of the ruling Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT), was vice president between 1996-2000, and the party's chairman between 2000 and 2005.

He represented the KMT in an ice-breaking visit to Beijing in April 2005 which led to a reconciliation between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party and paved the way for cross-strait cooperation.

During that visit, he met with China's President Hu Jintao and established a cooperation platform between the two parties. He has since become a cross-strait ambassador to bridge the gap between Taiwan and China, which separated at the end of a civil war in 1949.

Lien will be the highest-ranking official ever to represent Taiwan in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, to be held in Peru on November 22.

Lien has been treated as an honoured guest in China by Chinese leaders, including President Hu, despite the fact that China considers Taiwan an integral part of the mainland and subject to eventual unification.

Since the first APEC summit in Seattle in 1993, China has been able to bar Taiwan's president from the meeting, allowing Taiwan only to send economic officials and scholars to the summit. Beijing especially opposed any political figures that pro-independence former president Chen Shui-bian tried to send between 2000 and 2008.

Since Ma of the China-friendly KMT took office in May, the two sides have improved relations due to Ma's engagement policy and efforts to liberalize cross-strait economic exchanges.

APEC groups 21 Asia-Pacific nations. Taiwan joined APEC in 1991 under the name of Chinese-Taipei, because China forbids Taiwan to join international organizations using Taipei's formal title - The Republic of China. (dpa)