Taiwan's opposition leader to visit China next month, ahead of Trump

BEIJING: The leader of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), will visit China in April after being invited ‌by Chinese President Xi Jinping, a trip that will come a month before U.S. President Donald Trump goes to Beijing for his own summit.

Former lawmaker Cheng Li-wun won election as KMT chairwoman in October and has signalled a swing towards even closer ties with Beijing than her predecessor ​Eric Chu, who did not visit China during his term as chairman that began in 2021.

China, which views democratic ​Taiwan as its own territory, refuses to speak to the government of President Lai Ching-te, who ⁠it calls a “separatist”, but regularly welcomes senior KMT officials, and Cheng had said she was planning on going.

In a statement ​on Monday, the KMT said that Cheng was grateful for the invitation and had “gladly” accepted it.

“We hope April’s visit marks the ​beginning of the new spring of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and this would be the first step for both sides to extend kindness and build mutual trust,” Cheng told reporters in Taipei.

“We will work hard for cross-strait peace and stability, making positive efforts, and let ​the whole world feel at ease.”

Chinese state news agency Xinhua said that Cheng would visit from April 7 to 12 ​and go to Beijing, Shanghai and the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Hsu Kuo-yung, Secretary-General of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, told reporters in Taipei that ‌he ⁠hoped Cheng would tell Xi that “Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country.”

“I also ask her to make one thing especially clear: In Taiwan, we elect our own president,” Hsu said. “And she should also ask Xi Jinping: When is China going to elect its president?”

STALLED DEFENCE BUDGET

The announcement comes at a time when Lai’s government is trying to get Taiwan’s opposition-majority Parliament to approve an ​extra $40 billion in defence spending.

The KMT ​has said it supports ⁠strengthening Taiwan’s defences but it will not sign “blank cheques” and wants more details from the government.

Trump, whose administration has strongly backed Taiwan’s increased defence spending plans, is due in China in ​mid-May for a meeting that was postponed from early April due to the U.S. and Israeli ​war on Iran. ⁠China has yet to confirm the trip.

The defeated Republic of China government, led at the time by the KMT, fled ⁠to Taiwan ​in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. No peace ​treaty or armistice has ever been signed and neither formally recognises each other’s government.

In late 2015, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, also from the KMT, held a ​landmark meeting with Xi in Singapore.