Chen Yunlin shakes hands with Wu Poh-hsiung at a dinner banquet in Taipei on Wedensday night.

Beijing's top envoy on Taiwan affairs is set to meet island leader Ma Ying-jeou today despite an opposition threat to "lay siege" to their meeting venue.

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Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), is scheduled to meet Ma this afternoon at the Taipei Guest House, according to the agenda provided last night by the island's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).

Chen is the most senior mainland envoy to visit the island since 1949.

A meeting of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) central committee yesterday pledged to press ahead with the "siege" plan today.

Although police had rejected an application to protest, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen urged all party members to lead a siege of the Taipei Guest House to protest Ma's meeting with Chen.

Tsai said she estimated that as many as 100,000 people will take part in the rally.

Local media quoted Tsai as saying that she would not rule out the use of "radical ways" to express the party's position.

DPP lawmaker Wang Tin-Yu, who incited a mob to attack ARATS deputy chief Zhang Mingqing during a trip to southern Taiwan last month, arrived in Taipei yesterday to join the protest.