BEIJING, Apr 29 (AP) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and Taiwan's opposition leader met Friday in the highest-level contact between the two sides since they split amid civil war in 1949.

The visit by Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan caps a reconciliation between the Nationalists and their former communist enemies.

Hu and Lien met in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China's legislature in central Beijing. They shook hands in front of news cameras and Lien introduced Hu to his wife. Hu was accompanied by Vice Premier Wu Yi, the highest-ranking woman in China's government.

Lien's party once ruled all of China but fled to Taiwan after losing a war on the mainland to the communists. Beijing claims the self-ruled island as its territory and has threatened to attack if it pursues formal independence.

Lien's eight-day trip is part of efforts by Beijing to combat Taiwanese pro-independence activists by forging ties to parties such as Lien's that want eventually to unite the two sides.