Chinese leader Xi Jinping invoked ongoing global conflicts and the need for peace during a landmark meeting with the leader of Taiwan’s opposition on Friday and reiterated Beijing’s opposition to the independence of the self-ruled island.
The visit to Beijing by Cheng Li-wun, the leader of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT), was the first such meeting in a decade and comes weeks before US President Donald Trump is set to visit China for talks with Xi where Taiwan is expected to be high on the agenda.
“Today’s world is far from peaceful, and peace is all the more precious.” said Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Beijing refuses to talk to the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which has governed Taiwan for the past decade. China claims the island as its own and has not ruled out using force to take it one day. In recent years it has ramped up pressure and military drills around Taiwan, raising concerns tensions could escalate into geopolitical conflict.
“Compatriots on both sides of the strait are Chinese people and one family,” Xi said, adding Beijing was willing to work with political parties in Taiwan “on the common political basis of… opposing Taiwan independence.”
Cheng said she hoped that “through the tireless efforts of our two parties, the Taiwan Strait will no longer be a focal point of potential conflict, nor will it become a chessboard for external intervention.”
Her visit to China comes with Taiwan’s ruling party under pressure from both Beijing, which has ramped up military pressure on the island, and Washington, which is pushing it to pass a stalled $40 billion defense spending plan.
Cheng’s KMT favors warmer ties with Beijing and has been blocking the defense spending bill in Taiwan’s parliament.
It also comes as analysts say Beijing is pushing to capitalize on fears among some in Taiwan that Trump sees the island as little more than a pawn in the wider US-China spat and is not interested in its long-term future.
Along with tensions over trade and technology, Taiwan is expected to be a main talking point during Xi’s expected summit with Trump in May.
Beijing has long seen Taiwan as the most sensitive aspect of its ties with the US and slammed the announcement in December of an US$11 billion arms deal between the US and Taiwan – one of the biggest arms deals on record.
Cheng billed her trip to China as a “historic journey for peace.”
One stop on her itinerary was Nanjing, which once served as the capital of the KMT-run Republic of China. In 1949 the KMT was ousted from mainland China by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces and fled to Taiwan.
Some in Taiwan are wary of what a transactional and America-focused second Trump term may mean for their future.
Washington maintains close unofficial ties with Taiwan and is bound by law to sell arms to the island for its self-defense.
But on the campaign trail for his second term, Trump said Taiwan should pay the US more for “protection” and also claimed it had “stolen” America’s chip business.
Later comments from members of his administration that Taiwan should shift half of its production of advanced chips to the US were rebuffed by Taipe – and slammed by some KMT lawmakers. But Washington and Taipei reached a deal in February, opening the door for additional Taiwan investments in semiconductor production in the US.
And, amid global energy chaos triggered by Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing in March offered what it said would be energy stability to Taiwan if it agreed to its rule. Taiwanese officials called the move “cognitive warfare” that undermines confidence in energy security.
The DPP rejects China’s sovereign claim over Taiwan and will not endorse the “1992 consensus,” a framework under which both Beijing and Taipei acknowledge the existence of “one China,” but have different interpretations of what that is.
The KMT, however, accepts the 1992 consensus as a basis for dialogue, which is why its leaders can still meet Chinese officials.
CNN’s Wayne Chang and Joyce Jiang contributed reporting
