By Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI, May 24 (Reuters) Taiwan's main opposition party will ask China to bring the 2008 Olympics torch to the island if it wins the presidency next March, an official said on Thursday.

The decision by the Nationalist Party (KMT), which once ruled all China, comes after the ruling party of pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian last month rejected Beijing's route for the torch.

Chen's Democratic Progressive Party said it would refuse to allow China to send the torch because the relay route was scheduled to leave Taipei for Hong Kong. The DPP believed that would cast Taiwan and China as part of one country.

''Mainland China doesn't oppose negotiations,'' said Chang Jung-kung, head of the KMT's China affairs department. ''We will try as hard as we can to let it come here.'' Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949 when the Chinese Nationalist armies fled there after losing power on the mainland to Mao Zedong's Communists. Chen's party distrusts China and seeks to distance Taiwan from its influence.

Chang said any negotiations with China would be tough because the new president would not be inaugurated until May 2008 and Taipei was scheduled to receive the torch in late April.

Linking Taipei to Hong Kong was acceptable, Chang said, although he made clear that he did not speak for the whole KMT.

''It's originally supposed to be city to city, so there's nothing we can't accept,'' he said. ''(Taiwan) freight goes through Hong Kong to China. People go through Hong Kong to China. So why not the torch?'' REUTERS TB HT1700