Taiwan, Chinese presidents to meet for first time since ’49
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Saturday in Singapore with his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in a historic first culminating nearly eight years of quickly improved relations between the two sides, their governments said today.
The meeting could be China’s last to press its case for closer economic and, ultimately, political ties before Taiwan elects a new president and Legislature in January that could put the brakes on Mr. Ma’s pro-China initiatives. For Mr. Ma’s ruling Nationalists, who have been lagging at the polls, it carries the risk of appearing too close to Beijing, further damaging their chances with skeptical voters.
The two would be meeting in their capacity as “leaders of the two sides” of the Taiwan Strait, office director Zhang Zhijun was quoted as saying in a news release posted on the office’s website.
That appeared to afford them equal status, possibly an effort to blunt criticism from the pro-independence opposition in Taiwan who accuse Mr. Ma’s Nationalist Party of pandering to China’s ruling Communists.
Presidents of the two sides have not met since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communists and the Nationalists rebased in Taiwan 100 miles away in 1949. The two sides have been separately ruled since then, with Taiwan evolving into a freewheeling democracy.
China insists that the two sides eventually reunite, by force if necessary.
The two sides never talked formally until Mr. Ma, president since 2008, set aside old hostilities to allow lower-level official meetings. China and Taiwan have signed 23 deals covering mainly trade, transit and investment, binding Taiwan closer to its top trading partner and the world’s second-largest economy.
Taiwanese presidential spokesman Charles Chen said in a statement today that the two would exchange ideas about relations but not sign any deals.
The choice of Singapore as venue was significant because the Southeast Asian city-state with an ethnic Chinese majority population has strong relations with both Taiwan and China and serves as neutral ground.
Singapore hosted breakthrough talks between unofficial Taiwanese and Chinese negotiators in 1992 that established a formula whereby they acknowledge that there is only one China, of which Taiwan is a part, but differ on the exact interpretation.
Although Beijing insists on the so-called “1992 consensus” as the basis for talks, Taiwan’s main opposition Democratic Progressive Party has refused to embrace it, calling it meaningless and unrepresentative of popular sentiment on the island.
Mr. Ma is stepping down as president next year after his maximum two terms, and the DPP’s candidate Tsai Ing-wen is considered the front-runner to replace him. A DPP victory could prompt a sweeping reassessment of its Taiwan polices by Beijing, which has hoped that economic inducements would lead to greater acceptance of eventual political unification.
Mr. Ma’s government has come under increasing criticism at home for cozying up to China, amid fears Beijing will eventually leverage economic relations to exert more power over the island.
Such sentiments helped the DPP to a landslide victory a year ago in local elections, raising the possibility it might win not only the presidency but also a majority in legislative elections also being held Jan. 16.
The statement from Mr. Ma’s spokesman said the two presidents will meet to “solidify Taiwan-mainland relations and keep the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.”