The Chinese leader will meet with Ma Ying-jeou to promote nonviolent “reunification” as the only option to annexation, analysts say.
Xi Jinping met with former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in what analysts see as an attempt to promote peaceful unification as an option to military annexation of Taiwan.
Ma, who led a student delegation to China, met Xi in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People, a place reserved for foreign leaders to meet senior Chinese officials. Xi used the assembly to emphasize his confidence that Taiwan and China were destined for what he called “reunification. “
“Outside interference impedes the age-old trend of reuniting the country and family,” Xi said, according to Taiwanese media. He said other people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and that “there is no grudge to be resolved, no factor to be discussed, and no force that can tear us apart. “
Ma reportedly said that a war between the two sides would be “an unbearable burden on the Chinese nation. “
“The other Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will certainly have enough wisdom to peacefully deal with cross-Strait disputes and avoid conflicts,” Ma said.
Xi claims that Taiwan is a province of China and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary. Meanwhile, he has presided over a full-scale crusade of political, economic, and cognitive warfare, as well as near-daily military intimidation. , to convince Taiwan to settle for Chinese rule.
However, a developing majority of Taiwanese people and their government reject this prospect. The opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), of which Ma remains a prominent member, also rejects reunification but advocates closer ties with China as a way to keep the peace. one of the leading pro-China figures.
Amanda Hsiao, senior China analyst at International Crisis Group, said Beijing is looking to put on a friendlier face but is also likely seeking to undermine the ruling party and the new government, just weeks after the presidential inauguration of Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing despises. At the same time, it seeks to give the KMT “more evidence that only they can de-escalate cross-Strait tensions. “
“While some of the messages conveyed at the assembly will be appealing, other facets [such as] the fact that both sides are part of a larger Chinese country will likely have limited appeal to a wider society that increasingly identifies as distinctly Taiwanese,” Hsiao said.
Ma left eight years ago, but he still retains some social and political influence and remains a visual public figure. On Wednesday, Xi praised Ma’s promotion of exchanges between Straddy and his opposition to Taiwan independence.
Wen-Ti Sung, a policy expert at the Australian National University, said Ma is likely looking to maintain his legacy of warmer relations with China. Sung said Beijing’s “continued fixation” on Ma may simply suggest an inability to tame other high-profile political figures. in Taiwan that they were “ready to play the role of dove to Beijing today. “
However, Beijing will most likely also use the symbol to sign that nonviolent unification through “winning hearts and minds” remains Beijing’s preferred option, he said.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing’s “publicity campaign” could simply hide its ambitions to “eliminate Taiwan’s sovereignty. “
“If China needs to show goodwill towards Taiwan, it will have to immediately stop all acts of coercion against Taiwan, confront prevailing public opinion in Taiwan and, subject to reciprocity, resume discussion with Taiwan’s democratically elected government.
Wednesday’s meeting was rumored, but it was only demonstrated shortly before. It’s time for Xi and Ma, following a historic summit in Singapore in 2015, when Ma was still president. No existing leader of Taiwan has visited China since the end of the Civil War in 1949.
Additional information via Chi Hui Lin