The Chinese mainland's top Taiwan affairs official on Saturday urged efforts to promote peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and advance national reunification.
Song Tao, head of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the statement at a gathering to celebrate the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province.
The gathering was joined by Taiwan guests including Sean Lien, vice chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party.
At the event, Song called for efforts to safeguard the overall interests of the Chinese nation, resolutely oppose Taiwan separatism and external interference, and boost exchanges, cooperation and integrated development across the Taiwan Strait.
In his remarks, Lien said the KMT will continue to strengthen cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation while working to promote peaceful development of cross-Strait relations on the basis of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan separatism.
To the Chinese people, the Mid-autumn Festival means family reunion and harmony. The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on October 6.
Mainland's Taiwan affairs official urges peaceful development of cross-Strait relations
China's 42nd Antarctic Expedition team has started unloading supplies for scientific exploration after arriving at waters near the Zhongshan Station, a Chinese research base in Antarctica.
The ongoing seven-month scientific exploration mission is supported by Chinese icebreakers the Xuelong and the Xuelong 2, which set sail from Shanghai on Nov 1.
The two icebreakers will deliver about 2,000 tons of supplies to the Zhongshan Station for scientific exploration.
The Xuelong 2 arrived first at a designated unloading spot about 12 kilometers from the Zhongshan Station. Later, the ship's Ka-32 helicopter transported in batches more than 300 tons of polar fuel to the research base when weather conditions were favorable.
"Nearly 90 members of the expedition team carried by the two ship are already at the Zhongshan Station, preparing for receiving supplies and assignments for scientific exploration," said Wang Tao, person in charge of unloading operations at the Zhongshan Station.
Thanks to more than 30 hours of efforts by the Xuelong 2 to widen the channel and lead the way, the Xuelong, which was carrying about 1,500 tons of supplies, has also arrived at the unloading spot.
The unloading operations, involving a combination of sea-ice transport and helicopter lifts, are expected to be finished within two weeks.
And then, the Xuelong and the Xuelong 2 will proceed to China's Qingling Station and Changcheng Station in Antarctica, respectively.
The expedition team includes more than 500 members from over 80 institutions on the Chinese mainland, along with researchers from more than 10 other countries and regions, such as Thailand, Chile and Portugal, as well as China's Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, in support of broader international scientific collaboration.
They will conduct multi-disciplinary scientific surveys, advance several major national research projects, and test domestically developed equipment under polar conditions.
Particularly, scientific drilling experiments in lakes deep in the Antarctic inland ice sheet will be carried out for the first time.
China's 42nd Antarctic Expedition team unloads supplies at Zhongshan Station
