China’s Xi talks peace with Taiwan’s opposition leader even as Beijing raises military pressure

BEIJING – In an unusual meeting Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke with Taiwan’s main opposition leader about shared culture and bloodlines, before declaring that the island’s unification with the mainland is a “historical inevitability.”

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The meeting with Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Nationalist Party, comes amid heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait due to the intensification of Chinese military exercises and Beijing’s disregard for US arms sales to the island.

Although it did not result in a big announcement, the timing of the meeting, just weeks before President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing, suggests that Xi is seeking to show that China can exert political influence in Taiwan as well as demonstrate its power.

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At a news conference Friday, Cheng neither fully endorsed nor rejected China’s long-held goal of reunification with Taiwan, a self-governing island of 23 million people, where fears of a future Chinese military incursion are a specter that has haunted life for decades.

“We hope to consolidate a stable relationship,” Cheng told reporters. “This must be done step by step. General Secretary Xi and I are very pragmatic about this.”

Cheng’s pivot to China has made her a controversial figure in Taiwan, where she was once a student activist pushing for the island’s independence. At the time, she was known for her criticism of the party she leads today, also known as the Kuomintang or KMT, because of its warm ties to Beijing.

The handshake with Xi in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People, a space normally used to meet foreign heads of state, underscored the reversal of Cheng’s political beliefs.

At a time when U.S. military support is being questioned, Cheng, 56, reiterated his view that Taiwan must forge a close friendship with Beijing if it wants to maintain peace and avoid conflict.

“We must do everything in our power to prevent a war across the Taiwan Strait,” Cheng told NBC News in an interview last month in Taipei. “Instead of being troublemakers, we must be peacemakers,” she said.

On Tuesday, opening her multi-day visit to China, Cheng visited Nanjing, which was China’s capital when it was ruled by the Kuomintang. It was after its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 that the KMT fled to Taiwan, which was never conquered by the Chinese Communist Party.

Xi’s overtures to Cheng have been accompanied by open attacks on Taiwan’s current government led by President Lai Ching-te, who is dismissed by Beijing as a dangerous “separatist” for rejecting China’s claim that Taiwan is its territory.

“Taiwan independence is primarily responsible for destroying peace across the Taiwan Strait,” said Xi, who was joined by key members of the Politburo Standing Committee, according to an official account of his meeting with Cheng. “We absolutely will not tolerate or allow it,” he added.

A major flashpoint in China-US relations was not openly discussed at the meeting: arms sales.

In Taiwan, Cheng’s opposition to Lai’s proposed $40 billion increase in defense spending over the next eight years blocked approval of the government’s budget. The delay could also jeopardize a $14 billion US weapons program, already suspended by the Trump administration so as not to irritate Xi before the May summit.

Asked by NBC News if U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were discussed during Cheng’s meeting with Xi, a KMT representative responded in a text message: “No.”