(Al Jazeera Media Network) Opposition leader Cheng Li-wun and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met in Beijing, where both leaders stated their opposition to Taiwan independence and expressed a desire for a “peaceful” resolution to the long-running dispute over the island’s future.
They posed for photos at the Great Hall of the People and exchanged public remarks, in addition to holding their closed-door meeting.
Cheng is the highest-ranking Taiwanese leader to meet Xi since President Ma Ying-jeou talked with the Chinese leader in Singapore in 2015. They met again in China two years ago when Ma was a private citizen.
Both Cheng and Ma are members of the Kuomintang, the conservative-leaning Taiwanese political party that advocates for greater engagement with China by Taiwan’s self-ruled democratic government.
During her public remarks, Cheng stressed that Chinese and Taiwanese leaders should work to “transcend political confrontation and mutual hostility”.
“Through the unremitting efforts of our two parties, we hope the Taiwan Strait will no longer become a potential flashpoint of conflict, nor a chessboard for external powers,” Cheng said, according to an English translation.
“Instead, it should become a strait that connects family ties, civilisation and hope – a symbol of peace jointly safeguarded by Chinese people on both sides,” she said.
Cheng’s remarks were sprinkled with well-known Chinese Communist Party talking points, praising its success in eradicating absolute poverty to its goal of achieving the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
“During their open-door meeting, Xi also emphasised Taiwan and China’s shared history and culture, stating that “people of all ethnic groups, including Taiwanese compatriots,” had “jointly written the glorious history of China.”
“All sons and daughters of China share the same Chinese roots and the same Chinese spirit. This originates from blood ties and is deeply embedded in our history – it cannot be forgotten and cannot be erased,” Xi said.
He added that together with the KMT and other members of Taiwanese society, Beijing was ready to “work for peace” across the Taiwan Strait.
Both leaders said they oppose “foreign meddling” in Taiwan-China relations – a reference to US interference – while Cheng suggested that she would slow Taiwan’s military build up, according to Wen-ti Sung, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
“She talked about the ‘institutional arrangement for war prevention,’ which was a euphemism for saying that under her leadership, the KMT would not be seeking a defence and deterrence-oriented approach to war prevention,” he told Al Jazeera.
The message, in short, was that “Taiwan ought to slow down on defence buildup and buying US arms,” Sung said.
Taiwan’s military expansion has been a hotly debated issue in the legislature, where the KMT has for months blocked a $40-billion special budget to acquire US weapons. The opposition party alleges that the defence bill is too large and too vague. It offered a smaller $12-billion alternative.
Writing on Facebook ahead of the meeting, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wrote that the KMT continues to “deliberately avoid cross-party negotiations” while delaying approval of the special defence budget.
Lai said that his government also supports peace, but not “unrealistic fantasies”. Despite promises of peace from Xi, China has steadily ramped up its military presence in the waters and airspace around Taiwan in recent years. Since 2022, China’s armed forces have had six rounds of multi-day live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait, the 180-kilometre wide waterway dividing Taiwan from mainland Asia.
“History tells us that compromising with authoritarian regimes only sacrifices sovereignty and democracy; it will not bring freedom, nor will it bring peace,” Lai wrote on Facebook.
China accuses the ruling DPP’s leadership of pushing a “separatist” agenda. The DPP advocates for a distinct Taiwanese identity and, over the past decade, has tried to raise Taiwan’s profile on the world stage — which has provoked anger in Beijing.
The Chinese leadership cut off formal contact with Taipei shortly after the DPP came to power in 2016, although it continues to communicate through different groups, including the KMT.
