Top Chinese academics have dismissed Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's latest peace overtures as an attempt to win votes in a presidential election next month - a sure sign China will reject his offer.
China's policymaking Taiwan Affairs Office has so far withheld comment on Chen's call on Tuesday for China and Taiwan, bitter rivals since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, to set up a demilitarised zone and swap envoys.
"Chen's new overture is nothing but an election gambit aimed at covering up his pro-independence conspiracy and winning votes in the elections," the state-run China Daily on Wednesday quoted Xu Bodong, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Beijing's Union University, as saying.
"He is apparently using these overtures to cheat the Taiwanese public and the international community, so as to boost his chances of re-election."
Beijing is deeply suspicious of Chen - who called last month for a "holy war" against China - and has rejected any peace overtures in the past.