CHINESE President Xi Jinping met Kuomintang chairwoman Cheng Li-wun at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing today. It was the first meeting between leaders of their two parties (Mr Xi is also general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party) in a decade.

President Xi said reunification between mainland China and Taiwan, which has governed itself since the Kuomintang lost the Chinese civil war in 1949 and fled to the island, was a “historical inevitability.

“The great tide of cross-strait compatriots drawing closer and coming together will not change,” he declared, saying the concept of Taiwanese independence was “the chief culprit destroying peace in the Taiwan Strait; we absolutely will not tolerate it.

“Today’s meeting between the leaders of both parties is to maintain the peace and tranquillity of our common home.”

Ms Cheng said people on both sides of the strait would “jointly launch the rejuvenation project of Chinese civilisation.

“Although cross-strait peoples live under different systems, we will respect each other and move towards each other,” she said.

What she has dubbed a “peace mission” is significant in Taiwan. Though she is leader of the opposition because the Democratic Progressive Party holds the presidency, the Kuomintang is the largest party in the legislature and wields significant power, having combined with the Taiwan People’s Party to block a special defence budget ratcheting up military spending. A bid by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te last year to oust a fifth of the Kuomintang’s MPs in recall votes alleging they were collaborating with the mainland was a total failure, with not one recall vote succeeding.

Mr Lai called on legislators again today to back his budget after a week in which the Kuomintang boycotted cross-party talks on it, proposing an alternative budget and a review of the island’s huge spending on US-made armaments.

Beijing has long pursued peaceful reunification with Taiwan through closer economic integration. But since 2021, Taiwanese administrations have sought to shut out Chinese companies and restrict recruitment, citing a “brain drain” of scientific and engineering talent to the mainland.

Under the “one China” principle, countries may only have formal diplomatic relations with one of the two Chinese governments in Beijing or Taipei, both of which assert sovereignty over all of China.