KMT's Cheng Li-wun to Visit China at Xi's Invitation
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- Cheng Li-wun will lead a KMT delegation to Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Beijing from April 7-12 at Xi Jinping's invitation, becoming the first sitting KMT chair to visit the mainland in a decade; the last was Hung Hsiu-chu in 2016.
- Cheng confirmed she "gladly accepted" Xi's invitation, reiterating opposition to Taiwan independence and adherence to the "1992 Consensus" framework acknowledging "one China."
- The visit is timed ahead of Trump's expected May China visit and amid debate over Taiwan's US$40 billion special defence budget, which President Lai Ching-te proposed and is stalled in the opposition-controlled parliament.
- Analyst Wu Jia-lung argued Xi is using the meeting to signal to Trump that he can "penetrate Taiwan's internal politics" and block the special defence budget, posing the question: "Can Trump do the same?"
- Li Yaqi of RSIS said Beijing is leveraging the opposition-controlled legislature as a "veto structure" to constrain Lai's administration, not merely bypassing the DPP government in parallel.
- Analyst Chong Ja Ian of NUS warned any Xi-Cheng understanding could weaken Taiwan's defence preparedness while creating political cover for the KMT to frame the US as an unreliable weapons supplier.
- November local elections will test whether the outreach broadens the KMT's appeal with status-quo-favouring swing voters or becomes a liability by signalling excessive proximity to Beijing.
Why it matters: Beijing is testing whether it can use Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature as a structural lever against Lai's US$40 billion US-backed defence budget, with the KMT's November local elections serving as a real-time verdict. For Washington, the risk is that any Xi-Cheng understanding creates cover to delay arms sales and publicly question US reliability in front of Trump's May China summit.
