Taiwan opposition leader makes first China visit since 2016

The leader of Taiwan's main opposition party arrived in China today, making her the party's first incumbent chief to visit the country in a decade.

Cheng Li-wun, who took over as Kuomintang (KMT) chairperson last year, said she "gladly accepted" President Xi Jinping's invitation to visit and hopes to be a "bridge for peace".

Beijing cut off some communications with Taiwan after the Democratic Progressive Party's Tsai Ing-wen became president in May 2016, citing Tsai's refusal to endorse the concept of a single Chinese nation.

Cheng is expected to meet Xi during the later part of her six-day trip, which will span the cities of Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing.

Although the KMT has traditionally maintained warm ties with China, Cheng's eagerness to visit contrasts with her predecessors' more cautious approach towards cross-strait relations, some analysts say.

Her trip comes amid growing scepticism about the US in Taiwan "largely stemming from [Donald] Trump's mixed signals on his Taiwan policy and the Middle East conflict", says William Yang, North East Asia analyst at the non-profit think tank International Crisis Group.

"Cheng sees this as an opportunity for her to present herself as the political leader capable of maintaining cross-strait exchange and potentially reducing cross-strait tension," Yang says.

China sees self-governed Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be part of the country, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.

But many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation.

Although the US has formal ties with Beijing rather than Taiwan, it has for decades remained the island's biggest arms supplier. In recent years Trump has said that Taiwan should pay the US for defending it against China.

Just last week, a bipartisan US delegation visited Taipei, urging the parliament there to pass a $40bn special defence spending budget. The proposal is currently stalled in the opposition-dominated parliament.

Xi's invitation to Cheng comes weeks before he is due to meet Trump, who is scheduled to call on Beijing on 14 and 15 May.

"Beijing wants a cordial meeting with Taiwan's opposition to undermine the argument for US-Taiwan defence cooperation," says Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australian National University's Taiwan Centre.

This will then allow China to focus on "cutting business deals" with the US during Trump's visit, rather than addressing cross-strait issues, Sung explains.

For Cheng and the KMT, this could be politically beneficial ahead of Taiwan's local elections later this year.

Despite having started her political career as a pro-independence advocate, Cheng has in recent years tried to cultivate a reputation as a peace builder.

She is "trying to thread a needle between the US and China... to strengthen her leadership stature while highlighting Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's failure to resume engagement with the Chinese side", says Yang, from International Crisis Group.

Within Taiwan, however, Cheng's position of accommodating Beijing has proven unpopular, says political scientist Chong Ja-Ian of the National University of Singapore.

"Many do read Cheng as a fair-weather politician, an opportunist with little principle, and a politician that cares about her own position more than anything else," Chong says.

"That is a reason why the polls show little confidence in her.

"That also means that she is willing to wheel and deal," Chong adds. "Who this benefits, and how much, are the bigger questions."