Xi Revives Taiwan Outreach With Beijing Meeting

Xi Meets Taiwan Opposition Leader in Rare Beijing Encounter

President Xi Jinping of China met on Thursday in Beijing with Cheng Li-wun, the chair of Taiwan’s Kuomintang, in the first meeting of its kind in roughly a decade, reviving a politically charged channel across the Taiwan Strait at a moment of rising military pressure, frozen official ties and deepening debate inside Taiwan over how to deal with Beijing.

In the meeting, Mr. Xi cast Taiwan independence as “a threat” to peace and repeated Beijing’s long-held position that people on both sides of the strait are Chinese. Ms. Cheng, whose party has traditionally favored engagement with China and backs the so-called 1992 Consensus, presented her trip as an effort to preserve dialogue and reduce the risk of conflict.

The encounter was rich in symbolism. Beijing has refused formal communication with Taiwan’s government since the Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., took office in 2016, arguing that the party’s stance undermines China’s claim to the island. Yet it has continued to cultivate ties with the Kuomintang, or K.M.T., and other Taiwanese political and social figures, using those contacts to signal that dialogue remains possible — but only on terms more acceptable to Beijing.

That makes the meeting with Ms. Cheng more than a diplomatic courtesy. It offered Mr. Xi a high-profile opportunity to reinforce China’s message that talks are available to those in Taiwan who reject formal independence, while isolating President Lai Ching-te’s administration, which Beijing has branded separatist.

A Familiar Divide, Newly Intensified

The visit, which runs from April 7 to April 12, has already stirred criticism in Taiwan, where views of China have hardened as Beijing has stepped up military drills, diplomatic pressure and political messaging aimed at the island.

For the K.M.T., engagement with Beijing has long been presented as a practical way to lower tensions and preserve stability. The party argues that maintaining channels of communication can help avoid miscalculation at a time when the risk of confrontation is no longer abstract. Ms. Cheng’s appearance with Mr. Xi was intended to underscore that case.

Her critics, however, see a different dynamic: a Chinese leadership using selective access to shape Taiwan’s domestic politics and amplify divisions between the opposition and the ruling D.P.P. In that reading, such meetings do not reduce pressure so much as relocate it — from military coercion to political influence.

Those concerns have become especially potent in Taiwan’s increasingly defensive political climate. A growing share of the island’s public identifies primarily as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and many voters view Beijing less as a negotiating partner than as a threat. Against that backdrop, any senior Taiwanese politician seen as too accommodating toward China risks a domestic backlash.

Why the Timing Matters

The timing of the meeting is especially notable. It comes as China continues to intensify pressure on Taiwan and just weeks before a planned summit in May between Mr. Xi and former President Donald J. Trump, a meeting that could again place Taiwan near the center of U.S.-China tensions.

Taiwan has become one of the most dangerous flash points in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. China claims the island as its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control. The United States, while officially recognizing Beijing rather than Taipei, remains Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier.

In that broader strategic setting, Mr. Xi’s meeting with the K.M.T. leader serves several purposes at once: it projects confidence, underscores Beijing’s preferred political framework for cross-strait dealings and reminds both Taiwan and Washington that China believes it can still influence the island’s internal debate.

It also arrives with an eye on Taiwan’s longer political calendar. Though the next presidential election is still some distance away, cross-strait policy is already emerging as one of the defining questions that will shape the island’s politics in the years ahead.

Dialogue or Political Theater?

Whether the meeting produces any practical improvement in communication is far less clear.

Official cross-strait mechanisms remain frozen, and there is little sign that Beijing is prepared to engage directly with Mr. Lai’s government. That leaves opposition-party outreach as one of the few visible channels still functioning — but also one with obvious limits. The K.M.T. does not control Taiwan’s executive branch, and any understanding reached in Beijing would not amount to a formal government-to-government breakthrough.

The uncertainty is not only diplomatic but political. Ms. Cheng may be able to argue that she is acting responsibly by keeping lines open in a dangerous period. But the visit could just as easily reinforce accusations from opponents that the K.M.T. is too willing to legitimize Beijing’s narrative.

For Mr. Xi, too, the gains may be mostly presentational. The images from Beijing allow him to show domestic and foreign audiences that China’s position still resonates with some forces in Taiwan, even as the island’s elected government rejects his framework. But if the outreach is followed by fresh military intimidation or diplomatic pressure, any message of peace could quickly look secondary to coercion.

For now, the meeting has sharpened, not softened, the core dispute: Beijing insists that peace depends on rejecting Taiwan independence and embracing a shared Chinese identity, while much of Taiwan’s political mainstream increasingly defines peace as preserving the island’s democratic system and right to determine its own future.