Taiwan's opposition leader accepts Xi's invite to visit China

All eyes will be on whether KMT chair gets to meet Chinese President during April trip

- Yip Wai Yee

The chair of Taiwan’s main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT), Ms Cheng Li-wun, has “gladly” accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit China in April – which will mark the first such trip by a sitting KMT leader in a decade.

At a press conference in Taipei on March 30, Ms Cheng said that she hoped the six-day visit would be a “successful first step to future lasting peace across the Taiwan Strait”.

“The Taiwan Strait has been described by international media as ‘one of the most dangerous places in the world’, and we hope that the visit in April will usher in a warmer spring for cross-strait relations,” she said.

“Cross-strait peace is not only Taiwan's expectation, but also the highest expectation of the mainland,” she added.

Cross-strait relations have deteriorated in the 10 years of rule by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), following eight years of stability under the Beijing-friendly KMT. Analysts say Ms Cheng is banking on the party’s proven ability to foster warmer cross-strait ties to win back the presidency in 2028.

Chinese state news agency Xinhua said Ms Cheng would visit from April 7 to 12, when she will make stops in the eastern province of Jiangsu before heading to Shanghai and Beijing.

While a formal itinerary has yet to be finalised, all eyes will be on whether she secures a meeting with Mr Xi.

According to Mr William Yang, a Taipei-based senior Northeast Asia analyst at International Crisis Group, the sequence of the stops that China laid out in the official readout provides a clue.