Taiwan’s opposition leader met China’s Xi Jinping as both sides called for peace

BEIJING (AP) — Taiwan’s opposition leader met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Friday, their first meeting in a decade, with both sides reaffirming the need to maintain peace around the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory.

Xi and Cheng Li-wun, the head of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang Party, have both reiterated their desire to move toward a peaceful reunification of Taiwan and the mainland, though it remains unclear how this will be achieved. China has not ruled out the use of force and has stepped up its military exercises around Taiwan, sending warships and fighter jets close to the island and constantly poaching Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies.

Xi welcomed Cheng and his party representatives to the Great Hall of the People, where he often meets with world leaders, to applause from both sides. “The larger trend of compatriots on both sides of the road moving closer, closer and together will not change. This is a historical necessity. We are fully convinced of it,” he said.

“Although the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait live in different systems, we will respect each other and move towards each other,” Cheng added, adding, “We will seek systemic solutions to prevent and avoid war.”

She arrived in Beijing on Tuesday after visiting Shanghai and Nanjing.

Cheng has previously described himself as a promoter of peace between Taiwan and China. She has opposed large increases in Taiwan’s defense spending, and her party continues to block President Lai Ching-tae’s special defense budget for weapons purchases, including the construction of a deterrent air defense system called the Taiwan Dome.

Taiwan has been governed separately from China since 1949, when a civil war brought the Communist Party to power in Beijing. Defeated Kuomintang forces fled to Taiwan, where they established their own government.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-tei did not directly address Cheng’s visit to China, but issued a statement Friday morning urging the KMT to approve its special defense budget. He said, “History tells us that compromises with authoritarian regimes only come at the cost of sovereignty and democracy, and cannot bring freedom or peace.”

Cheng said she would push for a “framework for peace” between China and Taiwan, but did not offer any specifics when asked by reporters in Beijing after her meeting with Xi. She said she raised issues of raising Taiwan’s international profile, such as participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Free Trade Agreement, and Xi responded “positively.”

Cheng said that “the Taiwan Strait will no longer be a potential flashpoint for conflict, and will no longer become a chess piece to be played by the outside world.” Both parties will work to ensure this.

“His speech is not like that of a Taiwanese politician,” said Weihao Huang, a political science professor at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, who did not refer to the public. “You can’t see the mindset of the people from his words. It’s either his words are being banned by China or he was willing to be banned by China.”

Both Xi and Cheng said they supported the 1992 accord and opposed Taiwan’s independence.

The 1992 agreement is a tacit agreement, not formally incorporated as a document, that Taiwan and China are all part of one China. However, the KMT’s 1992 consensus with separate interpretations of what China meant was that they were “one China”, but the Communist Party has never accepted it.

“This visit is more important for Xi than for Cheng,” said Ma Chun-wei, an expert on China-Taiwan relations at Tamkang University in Taiwan. “At the local level, KMT grassroots members don’t really want Cheng to visit China at this time” ahead of local elections later this year.

But the visit is an opportunity for Xi to catch up with Cheng on Sino-Taiwan relations, Ma said, as there has been no official contact between the governments since the Democratic Progressive Party came to power. Moreover, Xi could tell the US not to interfere because “he has the channel and capacity to deal with the Taiwan issue.”

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Wu reported from Bangkok.