SHANGHAI, May 2 (AP) -- Taiwan's opposition leader called Monday for peace talks between Beijing and Taipei, saying mainland leaders appear more responsive to Taiwanese proposals on settling their 59-year-old feud than in the past.

Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan issued a joint pledge Friday with Chinese President Hu Jintao to promote an end to hostilities between the two sides, which split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing claims the island as its territory.

Lien said he repeated Taiwanese proposals for talks on a peace agreement, and Hu gave a "positive response," though he didn't commit to any specific arrangements.

Lien said Hu's comments, coming after China passed a law last month authorizing military force to stop Taiwan from pursuing independence, show that peace talks are the "core issue."

Lien's eight-day trip is part of Chinese efforts to isolate Taiwanese activists who want formal independence by forming ties with parties like the Nationalists that want eventually to unite the island with China.

Lien is the most prominent Taiwanese figure to visit the mainland since the 1949 split. The two sides have no official ties and high-level contacts are rare.

On Sunday, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian called on Beijing to talk directly to the island's elected government

"Regardless which political party or leader China wants to meet, eventually it must talk with Taiwan's popularly elected leader and the Taiwan government," Chen said.

On Monday, Lien met China's top envoy to the self-ruled island.

Lien also appealed to Beijing not to obstruct Taiwanese efforts at negotiating free-trade agreements with other governments and other steps aimed at closer integration with the world economy.

China says Taiwan has no right to conduct foreign relations and objects to official steps by other governments that appear to treat the island as a sovereign nation.

"As we make these efforts, we hope the mainland will take a positive and hopeful approach, and encourage us," Lien said in a lunch speech to a group of Taiwanese businesspeople.

Lien began his trip on April 26 in Nanjing, the former Nationalist capital when the party ruled China before fleeing to Taiwan after losing a civil war on the mainland to Mao Zedong's communists.

He arrived in Shanghai from Xi'an, his hometown in western China.

Massive crowds have greeted Lien at every stop, and the government has treated him like a head of state, lavishing coverage on him in official newspapers and on television.

The effusive reception mirrors Beijing's recent warming to its former Nationalist foes as it seeks to isolate Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, whose Democratic Progressive Party supports formal independence for the self-ruled island.

Chen on Sunday said he will send a personal message to Hu with another Taiwanese opposition leader, James Soong, who is scheduled to visit Beijing from Thursday.

He did not say what the message would contain.

Soong's small People First Party also favors eventual unification with China but has friendlier ties to Chen.

Taiwan barred contact with the mainland for decades, but has eased those limits since the early 1990s. Since then, Taiwanese companies have invested about US$100 billion (€77.18 billion) in China.