The waters of the Taiwan Strait will continue to be agitated although the president of the historic Kuomintang (KMT), Cheng Li-wunhas accepted the invitation of Xi Jinping to visit China. The Taiwanese opposition leader will tour Shanghai, Beijing and the province of Jiangsu next week, a region of enormous symbolism for the KMT, which today concentrates the bulk of investments from the island.
“I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng herself confirmed this Monday, convinced that her conciliatory attitude with Beijing can “change the climate that has been created around the Strait as a place of imminent danger and armed conflict.” The Chinese president has not yet confirmed whether he will receive her personally, however. Xi prefers to generate expectation.
“His decision is a risky bet for the KMT in the face of the next local and presidential elections, because Taiwanese internal politics has become polarized in the last two years,” he points out in conversation with this newspaper. William Hao-Wei Yanganalyst at the International Crisis Group. “The threat posed by China and the possibility of ‘reunification’ remain unpopular issues among Taiwanese voters.”
The truth is that Cheng arouses more sympathy in Beijing than his immediate predecessor at the head of the KMT, Eric Chu. The new leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party—winner of the October primaries with 51% of the vote—is deep bluea category that encompasses the hard line of the formation, those closest to the theses of “reunification” promoted by the Communist Party (CCP).
“It is still too early to assume that he will represent the KMT and run for president in 2028,” Yang said. “If she intends to position herself as a candidate, she will need to exercise caution and ensure that she maintains a certain balance, avoiding completely distancing herself from the pro-American approach that Taiwan has relied on over the past decades.”
High Voltage Summit
Cheng’s visit will take place before the summit between Xi and Donald Trumpinitially scheduled for April but postponed until mid-May as a result of the war in Iran.
Whether or not there is a meeting with Cheng, Xi will use his mere presence in China as an asset in negotiations with the tenant of the White House. It will be proof that his “national reunification” agenda has support in Taiwan. A compelling argument to defend their claims about the “separatist province” that Beijing intends to annex.
Trump maintains, like his predecessors, an ambiguous position on the United States’ commitment to the defense of Taiwan, but the sectors of the island most favorable to independence or the maintenance of the state in which They fear that the Republican president will use his historical support for Taipei as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with Xi.
In December, however, his administration approved a military aid package for Taiwan valued at $11.1 billion. It was the largest shipment of weapons from the United States in the history of the island. A declaration of intent that led the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to launch the largest military maneuvers around Taiwan since records began.
Aligned
The KMT agenda meets the CCP’s wishes. Cheng’s party and his parliamentary partners from the People’s Party of Taiwan (PPT) block a $40 billion defense budget in the Legislative Yuan, an initiative of the president By William Lai Ching and his Democratic Progressive Party (PPD).
Yang explains that “the Government and the DPP itself have already come out to criticize Cheng’s decision to visit China, considering it proof that the KMT acts in coordination with Beijing to weaken the country’s efforts to approve the special defense budget.”
Cheng, on the other hand, assures that his intention is to promote “the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, strengthen exchanges and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve the livelihoods of the population.” Well-intentioned, the KMT leader wants her visit to Beijing to inaugurate “a soft and warm spring” in relations between Beijing and Taipei.
Behind closed doors, Cheng guarantees that – if it occurs – his dialogue with Xi will not go beyond the framework of the 1992 Consensus. A tacit agreement between the KMT and the CCP according to which both sides of the Taiwan Strait recognize the existence of “one China”, although each side reserves its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The KMT leader reaffirms that “reunification” is not on the table. “What we need to address now is how to create peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations,” he declared at the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club in late March.
But “reunification” is Xi’s only goal when it comes to Taiwan. The Chinese president rejects any meeting with island leaders who do not share his agenda. He wants nothing to do with Lai Ching-te, whose legitimacy he does not even recognize. The last Taiwanese president to meet Xi was Ma Ying-jeoualways refractory to the sovereignist impulses of the PDP, and eleven years have passed since that meeting in Singapore.
Cheng would not, however, be the first Taiwanese opposition leader to visit China. It won’t set any precedent. In 2005, then KMT leader, Lien Chanlanded on the continent to meet with the president Hu Jintao in his capacity as general secretary of the CPC.
Coincident or not, Cheng became part of the KMT after leaving the ranks of the DPP at the invitation of Lien, historic vice president of Lee Teng-huifather of Taiwanese democracy.
Cheng herself recalled this week that Lien visit: “In 2005, President Lien Chan invited me to join the Kuomintang so that I could help him carry out that historic peace trip that broke the ice. That year I traveled with the delegation as its spokesperson. It was the first time in my life that I set foot on the continent.”
“Today, more than twenty years later,” Cheng continued, “it is clear that President Lien’s courage, determination and vision laid the foundation of the KMT–CPC platform, which became an important cross-Strait communication mechanism and played an irreplaceable and crucial role in safeguarding cross-Strait peace.”
Furthermore, the current vice president of the KMT, Hsiao Hsu-tsenCheng’s number two, led a party delegation that traveled to Beijing last February to participate in an “exchange between think tanks“. A displacement that served to prepare the ground.
Fracture in the KMT
Cheng’s visit threatens to break the unity of the KMT. “Certain sections of the party will celebrate and welcome this decision as they see it as an important aspect of one of the KMT’s main historical selling points,” Yang acknowledges.
But the International Crisis Group analyst recalls that “there is concern about the impact that Cheng’s trip may have on the electoral chances of many KMT politicians in the 2026 local elections and the 2028 presidential elections.”
These more moderate sectors of the party consider that visiting Beijing when the United States redoubles pressure on Taipei to approve the new budget to shore up the island’s defenses can damage the KMT’s image in Washington and Taiwanese public opinion.