Chinese President Xi Jinping met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing Wednesday in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949.
Ma stepped down as president in 2016 and was largely excluded from the opposition Nationalist Party’s failed campaign to retake the presidency in January, a concession to the electorate’s strong opposition to political unification with China and politicians seen as willing to compromise Taiwan’s security.
He follows a long line of politicians from the Nationalists, also known as the KMT, who have been invited to China by its authoritarian one-party government and given VIP treatment on visits around the country.
