Popular Chinese blogger makes low-profile visit to Taiwan

Taipei, May 4 (CNA)
China's most popular blogger, Han Han, has been in Taiwan for the past four days on an unpublicized visit to take part in a cross-strait forum organized by Taipei-based magazine Global Views Monthly, local media reported Friday.

The 29-year-old writer, who has become the unofficial voice of his generation, arrived in Taiwan for the first time Tuesday with a group of business and cultural professionals and was scheduled to leave later the same day, according to the Chinese-language United Daily News.

The Chinese rally driver and his group met with President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday to share views on Taiwan's democracy and the improvement in relations between Taiwan and China in recent years.

"Taiwan is great," Han said during the meeting in reference to its democratic development, according to the report. Han has touted the island's free political environment in his books.

ThinKingDom, a company that has published Han's books in Taiwan, said the writer expressed the desire in April to visit the island, but it was only informed by the writer himself about his trip two days ago after he had arrived in the country.

The rebel writer, who represents China's "post-80s generation," gained fame after publishing articles commenting on Chinese society and cultural phenomena in his blog.

(By Sabine Cheng and Maia Huang)
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