Fri, Apr 10, 2026 page1

• KMT’s Cheng touts ‘shared political foundation’ at Xi meeting

  • By Liu Wan-ling and Fion Khan / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

  Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said.

  Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said.

  

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun speaks at a dinner reception held by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao in Nanjing, China, on Tuesday.

  Photo: Taipei Times file photo

  Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the public on both sides long for, and that interactions and exchanges should be reciprocal, she said.

  "I, Li-wun, sincerely hope that one day in the future, I will have the opportunity to be ​the host and welcome General ​Secretary Xi and all of ⁠you here present in Taiwan," she added, using Xi's title as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

  Cheng told Xi she hoped that, through the efforts of both parties, the Taiwan Strait would no longer be a focal point of potential conflict and would certainly not become a "chessboard for outside forces to intervene in."

  She said she hoped that the Taiwan Strait would become a waterway linking kinship, civilization and hope, with the two sides demonstrating to the world their wisdom in resolving differences and their compassion in contributing to peace and development.

  The CCP and the KMT should work together to build a modern Chinese civilization as a model for global integration and prosperity, Cheng said.

  Since former KMT chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) landmark “peace trip” to China in 2005, which broke the ice, the two parties have taken a forward-looking historical perspective to promote reconciliation and peaceful development across the Strait, she said.

  The future direction of cross-strait relations is a shared question, she said, adding that although interactions between the KMT and CCP over more than a century have had ups and downs, both sides have consistently sought the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

  The “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” represents the shared revival of people on both sides, a renewed flourishing of Chinese civilization and a contribution to global peace and human progress, Cheng said.

  She praised China’s development under Xi’s leadership, saying that it had completely alleviated poverty, built a moderately prosperous society and continued to advance.

  While people on the two sides of the Strait live under different systems, they should respect one another and move toward each other, she said.

  The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.

  Additional reporting by Reuters
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