The Kuomintang’s first meeting with the Chinese Communist Party in a decade marked a troubling turn in the KMT’s engagement with China.
Following months of pro-China rhetoric through alignment with the “1992 Consensus,” calls for Taiwanese to be “proud to call themselves Chinese,” and support for China’s “national rejuvenation,” the KMT and its Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) finally got the opportunity to meet with Xi Jinping.
Framed as a “peace mission,” Cheng’s approach raises serious doubts about the KMT’s vision for Taiwan’s future, as she spent much of her time in Beijing reproducing CCP narratives word for word.
While cross-strait dialogue is important to reduce miscalculation, that argument holds only if one ignores what generates tensions in the Strait — not so-called “separatist forces,” but a great power’s coercion of a thriving democracy. Peace is not a unilateral process.
The figures speak for themselves. Between April 7 and 12, 39 PLA sorties involving multiple ADIZ incursions, 39 PLAN ships, and 11 official ships were identified near Taiwan, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, all while Cheng was still in China. This illustrates how China understands peaceful rapprochement with Taiwan.
Rather than an effort to achieve peace, the meeting suggests the CCP is attempting to elevate the KMT as its official interlocutor because of the party’s alignment with its goals.
Echoing the CCP’s narrative
What each side gave and received defines the outcome of the visit. So what did the KMT concede? In line with its hardline pro-China stance, Cheng praised Xi’s governance record, citing poverty eradication and economic development as achievements worthy of recognition.
More importantly, she echoed the language of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” opposed external intervention in the Strait, and expressed hope that it would become a link of kinship, despite the Mainland Affairs Council warning her not to fall into a united front trap. It looked like a performance in which one side recited the other’s script.
Beyond words, the KMT’s current approach to national defense signals to Beijing that, if returned to power, it could reduce Taiwan’s defensive capacity without extracting any reciprocal commitment from the PRC.
And what did Taiwan gain from this meeting? China announced 10 measures to reinforce cross-strait relations, framed as a generous “gift” by KMT Vice Chairperson Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭), but that framing warrants caution. It is critical for the KMT to understand China’s economic coercion toward Taiwan, as this “gift” could quickly become economic weaponization.
But even setting that risk aside, this “gift” must confront political reality: the KMT is not Taiwan’s government and does not have the power to negotiate with other countries or make cross-strait decisions.
This visit comes close to interference, in that it seeks to reframe China-Taiwan relations through CCP-KMT ties.
Reframing cross-strait relations
Elevating the KMT as its preferred interlocutor gives Beijing a parallel channel into cross-strait relations, sidelining Taipei’s elected government in the process.
This also directly undermines a decade of DPP-US cross-strait policy, as China can argue that dialogue under the 1992 Consensus is both possible and desirable for peace. It exploits Taiwan’s internal divisions to promote the KMT’s Beijing-leaning approach as the most suitable path for long-term peace.
Beijing is fully aware of this. Indeed, the visit came at a carefully chosen moment. Trump’s planned trip to China was postponed, and Beijing moved Cheng’s visit forward, separating the two events and reinforcing its claim that Taiwan is a domestic matter requiring no outside involvement.
The message to Washington is that cross-strait dialogue can proceed under the 1992 Consensus without US input. Amid a coming Trump-Xi summit in May, there is little doubt that Cheng’s visit will be used by China to cast doubts in the United States. Cheng’s trip handed Beijing a concrete scene to reinforce that argument.
Nonetheless, Cheng’s ability to reframe anything depends on her credibility, and that of the KMT, in representing Taiwan’s voice. In this regard, her approach shows a profound disconnection from Taiwan’s sociopolitical landscape. Unification has very little appeal among Taiwanese, while Taiwanese identity has continued to grow since the late 1990s and “one country, two systems” remains widely rejected.
The current KMT’s cross-strait strategy does offer a different path from the DPP’s approach of military buildup and increased preparedness, but it does not resonate with the views of most Taiwanese and, more importantly, does not match China’s non-negotiable goal of unification, peacefully or not.
Domestically, the consequences of this meeting for the KMT remain unclear. The party will certainly face the political results of its cross-strait policy at the ballot box. This could reinforce the KMT’s relevance as the only Taiwanese political actor capable of dialogue with China and as a peacemaker opposing the DPP’s peace-through-strength posture.
However, it also risks further branding the KMT as pro-China and highlighting China’s interference in Taiwanese affairs. A November 2025 TPOF survey found that 50.3% of Taiwanese already agreed that the KMT identifies more with China than with Taiwan, suggesting that Cheng’s performance in Beijing will do little to reverse that perception.
Cheng may believe that dialogue, even a profoundly asymmetric one, is better than silence, and there is some merit to that view. But it has less merit when the party seeking dialogue arrives without leverage, leaves without concessions, and returns home having praised the government that is encircling Taiwan with warships.
