China’s Xi and Taiwan’s Ex-President Ma Meet in Beijing

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday received former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where Xi declared both sides of the Taiwan Strait must pursue “reunification.”

The media had previously believed the two would meet on Monday. Some analysts have suggested the meeting was pushed forward to coincide with U.S. President Joe Biden’s summit with Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in Washington, D.C.

The Republic of China, the official name of Taiwan’s government, fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The Chinese Communist Party claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island and has pledged to someday unify with it, through force if necessary.

Wednesday marked Xi’s second face-to-face with Ma, who made headlines in 2015 when he became the first Taiwanese leader to meet his Chinese counterpart since the split. Ma is a member of Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) part, which officially favors closer ties with Beijing without unification.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Xi stressed that “compatriots” on both sides of the 90-mile-wide strait share a bloodline and common history and culture, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office wrote.

Both sides of the strait must firmly oppose “Taiwan independence” separatist activities and meddling by external forces, firmly safeguard the common homeland of the Chinese nation, and together pursue peaceful reunification, he added.

Ma said that the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan independence are the pillars of peaceful cross-strait development. The 1992 Consensus is a term, coined years later, for a meeting in which Chinese and Taiwan officials concurred there is only “one China.” As for which side was the real China, this was left open to interpretation.

China insists the alleged consensus is a prerequisite to resuming the warmer cross-strait ties seen during the Ma administration. Current Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen maintains this event was a “historical fact” rather than a binding agreement—a position that raised China’s ire.

Beijing characterizes the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has coasted to three consecutive presidential victories since 2016, as part of a fringe group out of step with the majority opinion, though recent polling suggests only about 12 percent of Taiwanese favor moving toward unification with their neighbor.

China has said official declaration of independence from Taiwan would trigger war. Tsai has said such a declaration is unnecessary, as Taiwan is already an independent state.

Ma arrived in China on April 1 as a private citizen, at the head of a delegation of young KMT members with the aim of lowering tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

His visit has received a mixed reception back home.

Fan Yun, a national legislator from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, told Newsweek she was disappointed by Ma’s visit.

“I must point out that Mr. Ma has been used as a tool by the Chinese Communist Party for its united front strategies,” she said, adding that his brief meeting with Xi not only “lacked any fresh perspective” but was a public “loss of integrity.”

She accused Ma of willingly allowing himself to be used by Xi to distract from Biden’s meeting with Kishida and said the former leader only counts among his supporters a small pro-unification minority in Taiwan.

“Ma Ying-jeou was once a democratically elected president of Taiwan. By embracing his Chinese dream and forsaking democracy, he has shamed the freedom obtained at the cost of so many predecessors’ lives in Taiwan,” she said.

Newsweek reached out to the KMT and Chinese embassy in the U.S. via written requests for comment.

“I do think that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is taking full advantage of Ma in the sense that they were able to move his meeting to coincide with the U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral meeting,” Lev Nachman, political scientist and assistant professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei, told Newsweek.

“It sort of shows that this is much more about political signaling on behalf of the CCP than it’s just about ROC (Republic of China) and PRC (People’s Republic of China) friendship, which is what I think they originally tried to bill this meeting as,” Nachman said.

Biden and Kishida are set to meet Thursday along with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in the first three-way summit for the countries. Concerns over China’s military expansion in the Asia-Pacific are expected to feature during their discussions.