PFP Chairman James C. Y. Soong gives a speech at Taipei's Taoyuan Airport before leaving for mainland, May 5.

Chairman of the People First Party (PFP) in Taiwan James C. Y. Soong left Taipei at about 9:20 a.m. Thursday to embark on a nine-day visit to the mainland, according to sources in Taipei.

The first stop of the PFP delegation will be Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

The itinerary of Soong and his delegation will also include Nanjing, once capital of the Kuomintang-ruled Republic of China before 1949; Shanghai, China's biggest financial and trade hub; Xiangtan, central China's Hunan Province, where Soong was born; and the Chinese capital Beijing.

Before leaving Taipei, Soong said at Taipei's Taoyuan Airport that he, with a high degree of sincerity, hopes to build a bridge of mutual trust, cooperation and communication.

"The widest gap between the two sides across the Taiwan Straitsis not geographical but psychological one," Soong said.

He said he hopes the PFP's "Journey of Work" will re-open the chapter of mutual trust across the Straits in the new era.

Soong, at the invitation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and its General Secretary Hu Jintao, is scheduled to meet Hu during his stay in Beijing.

The PFP chairman is also expected to visit the mausoleum of Huangdi, who was regarded as the common ancestor of the Chinese, near Xi'an, pay homage to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Chinese Kuomintang, at Sun's mausoleum in Nanjing, and deliver a speech at the prestigious Qinghua University.