China's Xi Meets Taiwan Opposition Leader Cheng Li-wun
Why it matters: This meeting could influence U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Cheng Li-wun, leader of Taiwan's largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in Beijing, emphasizing "peaceful development" across the Taiwan Strait and calling people from both countries "one family."
- The meeting is the first official encounter between the sitting heads of the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT in almost a decade, occurring ahead of a planned May summit between Xi and President Donald Trump where U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are likely to be discussed.
- Cheng Li-wun views her trip as a "peace mission" to demonstrate that dialogue with Beijing is possible to ease tensions, despite the KMT having less than a third of popular support in Taiwan and Beijing escalating military drills around the island.
- George Yin, a senior research fellow at the Center for China Studies at National Taiwan University, suggests Cheng's strategy is to advocate for a "hedging, middling strategy for Taiwan" by leveraging anxiety about working with Trump's Washington.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) leader Cheng Li-wun in Beijing, marking the first such high-level meeting in nearly a decade, ahead of Xi's summit with President Trump. While Xi emphasized "peaceful development" and called both sides "one family," Beijing continues to refuse engagement with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which it considers separatist.
