Austin Ramzy
The New York Times
April 24, 2015
President Xi Jinping of China, who is also general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, will meet next month with the chairman of Taiwan’s governing party in Beijing, both sides said on Friday, in what would be the first meeting of the two parties’ leaders since 2009.
No major breakthroughs are expected in the May 4 meeting between Mr. Xi and Eric Chu, the chairman of the Nationalist Party, also known as the Kuomintang.
“The two sides will have a wide-ranging exchange on the prospects for cross-strait relations, the well-being of people on both sides of the strait and other common issues,” the Kuomintang said in a statement.
The Kuomintang fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists in 1949. China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification.
Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, who led the Kuomintang until last year, has pushed for closer trade ties with China during his two terms. But that effort has set off protests in Taiwan and contributed to a sharp defeat for his party in local elections in November.
In 2005, Lien Chan, then the chairman of the Kuomintang, traveled to China to meet the Communist Party’s general secretary at the time, President Hu Jintao, the first such meeting between the two parties’ leaders since 1945. Such meetings have been held occasionally in subsequent years, but leaders of the two parties have not met since 2009.
