Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week, it was announced Monday, in a bid to ease tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
Ma led Taiwan through a period of more friendly ties with Beijing, but resigned after a controversy over a trade deal with China, which was not passed, following the island’s biggest protests since the 1990s.
The former ruler will visit Nanjing, Wuhan and Changsha, as well as other cities, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen suggested at a press conference in Taipei, indicating Ma will not go to Beijing.
Ma’s visit comes as China’s People’s Liberation Army sends fighter jets to Taiwan on an almost daily basis and at a time when official communication between the two governments has been broken.
China claims that Taiwan is part of its territory, but the current Taiwanese government insists on defending its autonomy.
Ma, who is a member of the Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang, in opposition), will lead a delegation of academics and students, as well as former government officials, from March 27 to April 7.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said Ma had briefed the initiative, adding that it hoped that “Ma, in the role of former head of state (…) will enhance the value of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom and the position of equality and dignity in exchanges” between the two parties.
During Ma’s tenure, Taiwan and China intensified contacts. Ma negotiated a trade pact with Beijing in 2010.
As both sides mutually opened their borders, concerns grew that Taiwan would inevitably fall into Beijing’s orbit, culminating in nationwide protests against a proposed trade deal with China in 2014.
The protests mobilized more than 200,000 demonstrators and ended in the 24-day occupation of Taiwan’s parliament by students.
Ma met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015. The meeting was the first meeting between the leaders of the two sides since Taiwan’s secession from mainland China during the 1949 Chinese Civil War, but it was seen as more symbolic than expected.
In 2016, the Progressive Democratic Party won the national elections and Beijing cut contact with the Taiwanese government because Tsai refused to defend the idea of one China.
Source: DN
