CHINESE SECURITY GUARDS PRACTISE MARTIAL ARTS AT A BEIJING HOTEL, 1998-09-23 (photo)

Chinese security guards practise martial arts at the Diaoyutai Hotel where China and Taiwan negotiators are holding talks September 23. Shi Hwei-yow vice-chairman of Taiwan's semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, and Zhang Jincheng, secretary general of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, met at the hotel to prepare for an October resumption of highest level Taiwan-China talks in Shanghai. Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province since the Nationalist Government fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the Communist Party in 1949 and has threatened to invade if the island declared independence. ASW/KK