Chinese President Xi Jinping met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and said outside influence may not save the “family-friendly” meeting between Beijing and Taipei.
Xi emphasized the discussion between the two sides in his meeting with Ma on Wednesday, saying all issues can simply be discussed, Reuters news firm reported.
“External interference impedes the age-old trend of reuniting the country and family,” Xi said, in remarks reported by Taiwanese media.
Beijing sees the self-governing island as a province that will have to be reunified with mainland China and does not rule out the use of force to assert its claims to Taiwan.
Taiwan cut off contacts with mainland China and established its own in 1949 after Nationalist forces that lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong’s Communists fled there.
Taiwan, the official best friend known as the Republic of China, has temporarily become an economic powerhouse and America’s best friend for years to come. It is currently one of the largest manufacturers of semiconductors, a key component of electronic devices worldwide.
No sitting Taiwanese president has ever stopped in China. Ma is now in the process of traveling to China after he became the first former Taiwanese president to make a stopover in the country last year.
This comes amid emerging tensions in the Taiwan Strait. On Wednesday, Xi said both sides of the Strait were Chinese.
“There is no grudge that cannot be resolved, no factor that cannot be discussed and no force that can tear us apart,” the Chinese president quoted Reuters as saying.
Xi had said in the past that the unification of China and Taiwan was “inevitable. “
But Western countries have warned China about a conceivable invasion of Taiwan, and U. S. President Joe Biden has said Washington will militarily protect the island if it is attacked.
China has conducted military exercises near Taiwan in recent years, and was joined in 2022 by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.
Ma told Xi on Wednesday that the tensions had unsettled many Taiwanese.
“If there is a war between the two sides, it will be unbearable for other Chinese,” Ma said, a term that refers to other ethnic Chinese in both countries.
“The Chinese on both sides of the Strait surely have enough wisdom to resolve all disputes peacefully and avoid falling into conflicts. “
Reacting to the talks, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which is guilty of China’s policymaking, said it deeply regretted that Ma publicly made the Taiwanese people’s insistence on upholding the sovereignty and democratic formula of the Republic of China.
He added that Beijing deserves to avoid bullying Taipei and its differences with Taiwan through respectful dialogue.
Ma, who was Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016, remains a member of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT).
In January, Vice President Lai Ching-te, through Beijing a “dangerous separatist,” won elections in Taiwan. He will succeed current President Tsai Ing-wen in May.
Biden and Xi had a phone call earlier this month for the first time since November.
“This call will be an opportunity for the president to reaffirm the U. S. one-China policy and reiterate the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, especially in view of the upcoming presidential inauguration in May in Taiwan,” a U. S. official told reporters. . Speaking on condition of anonymity last week.
Washington pursues a “one-China” policy that does not recognize Taiwan as an official country despite its close ties to its government.