TAIPEI - TAIWANESE leader Ma Ying-jeou said he will meet with a top Chinese envoy next week in his official capacity as the island's president, in an attempt to allay fears that such high-level contacts will compromise Taiwan's sovereignty.

Mr Ma's comments, made in a television interview Wednesday, were part of an intensive media campaign mounted by the government ahead of the visit beginning on Monday by Mr Chen Yunlin, chairman of the mainland's semiofficial Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.

Mr Chen will head a 60-member delegation, including leading bankers and other businessmen, for a five-day visit.

'I will receive them in the capacity of the president of the Republic of China,' Mr Ma said in the interview with the ETTV Cable News station, referring to the island by its official name. Mr Ma said he hoped Mr Chen would refer to him as president.

Mr Chen's visit - the first by a top Chinese envoy - is supposed to provide tangible evidence of reduced tensions between Taipei and Beijing and give a big boost to Mr Ma's programme of greater engagement with the mainland.

Mr Chen will hold talks with his Taiwanese counterpart Chiang Pin-kung on the introduction of direct sea links and cargo flights, building on agreements reached in Beijing in June to launch regular passenger flights and expand numbers of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.

Despite the public relations drive, Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party, whose candidate Mr Ma defeated to win the presidency in March, says it fears China could use the new negotiations to assert its claim to the self-governed island, which split from the mainland in 1949 during China's civil war.

'The government has not told the public how much Taiwan will have to pay for the opening,' DPP Chairman Tsai Ing-wen told reporters Thursday.

Mr Chen's visit was thrown under a shadow when a deputy, Mr Zhang Mingqing, was attacked by protesters in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan during an informal visit last week. Mr Zhang was pushed to the ground and lightly injured, prompting him to leave Taiwan two days ahead of his scheduled departure.

In the TV interview, Mr Ma said the two sides would observe a set of ground rules during their talks, consisting of 'facing up to reality, no denial of each other's existence, creating benefits for the public, and peace for the two sides of the (Taiwan) strait'.

Meanwhile, Mr Chen told Taiwanese reporters in Beijing that he will simply discuss economic issues at the talks.

'The talks will be very simple in nature and will not touch on political issues,' Mr Chen said.

He said he regretted he would not visit southern Taiwan despite promising a group of visiting Taiwanese earlier this month that he would do so.

Mr Chen did not elaborate, but southern Taiwan is the DPP's stronghold. On Saturday, some 200,000 opposition supporters staged an anti-Chen rally in Taipei, with most protesters coming from the rural south.

In a separate statement, Mr Ma's government said the direct air and sea links expected to be agreed at the talks will help Taiwanese sell their fresh fruit, vegetables and frozen fish to the mainland, an apparent appeal to the opposition's hardcore supporters in rural Taiwan. -- AP