Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s opposition to the autonomous island’s independence on Friday in a landmark meeting with Taiwanese rebel leaders, citing the ongoing global conflict and the need for peace.
Taiwan Kuomintang (KMT) leader Cheng Liyun’s visit to Beijing is the first such meeting in a decade and comes weeks before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to travel to China for talks with President Xi, with Taiwan expected to be high on the agenda.
“Today’s world is far from peace, and peace is increasingly precious,” Xi said at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The Chinese government has refused to talk to the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has ruled Taiwan for the past decade. China claims the island as its own and has not ruled out using force to someday take it back. In recent years, China has stepped up pressure and military exercises around Taiwan, raising concerns that tensions could escalate into a geopolitical conflict.
“Our compatriots on both sides of the Strait are one family with the Chinese people,” Xi said, adding that Beijing was ready to cooperate with Taiwan’s political parties “on the common political basis of opposing Taiwan’s independence.”
“We hope that with the unrelenting efforts of both countries, the Taiwan Strait will no longer be a focus of potential conflict or a pawn of external intervention,” Cheng said.
Her visit to China comes as Taiwan’s ruling party is under pressure from both Beijing, which is ramping up military pressure on Taiwan, and the United States, which is pushing to pass a stalled $40 billion defense spending plan.
Chung’s Kuomintang party supports closer ties with China and has blocked a defense spending bill in Taiwan’s parliament.
It also comes as analysts say Beijing is trying to exploit concerns among some in Taiwan that President Trump views the island as just another pawn in the broader U.S.-China conflict and has no interest in the island’s long-term future.
In addition to tensions over trade and technology, Taiwan is expected to be a major topic of discussion at President Xi’s summit with President Trump in May.
Beijing has long viewed Taiwan as the most sensitive aspect of its relationship with the United States, and in December it condemned the announcement of an $11 billion arms deal between the United States and Taiwan, one of the largest arms deals in history.
Chen claimed his trip to China was a “historic journey for peace.”
One stop on her itinerary was Nanjing, which once served as the capital of the Kuomintang-run Republic of China. In 1949, the Kuomintang was expelled from mainland China by Communist forces led by Mao Zedong and exiled to Taiwan.
Some people in Taiwan are wary of what a transactional, America-focused second term for President Trump could mean for their future.
The U.S. government maintains close unofficial ties with Taiwan and is legally required to sell arms to Taiwan for self-defense purposes.
But during his campaign for a second term, Trump said Taiwan should pay the United States more for “protection” and also claimed that Taiwan “stole” America’s semiconductor business.
Later, comments by members of the administration that Taiwan should transfer half of its advanced chip production to the United States were rejected by Taipei and criticized by some Nationalist Party members. However, the United States and Taipei reached an agreement in February, paving the way for additional Taiwanese investment in semiconductor production in the United States.
And amid the global energy turmoil caused by Iran’s strangulation in the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing in March offered Taiwan a deal that would guarantee energy security if it agreed to take control. Taiwanese authorities called the move a “war of perception” that undermines confidence in energy security.
The Democratic Progressive Party rejects China’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan and does not support the 1992 Consensus, a framework in which both Beijing and Taipei recognize the existence of “one China” but have different interpretations of what that is.
But the Kuomintang has accepted the 1992 agreement as the basis for dialogue, so its leaders can still meet with Chinese officials.
CNN’s Wayne Chan and Joyce Jiang contributed reporting.
