Meeting in a hotel ballroom in Singapore, the two leaders walked toward each other in front of a yellow backdrop.
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Xi said the people of China and Taiwan were compatriots, “one family with blood that is thicker than water”. He added that both nations need to have respect for the values and way of life of each country. “Turning military conflict into peaceful development has definitely not been an overnight effort”.
His Beijing-friendly Kuomintang, or Nationalist party, has caused unease with voters by bringing the two sides closer economically, and its presidential candidate is trailing in opinion polls. Xi called the meeting a “historic day” and referred to Taiwan and mainland China as “brothers who are still connected by our flesh even if our bones are broken”.
The leaders of China and Taiwan met on November 7 in Singapore, marking the first time heads of the once-bitter rival states saw each other face-to-face since the beginning of the Chinese Civil War in 1946.
“Both sides uphold the “One China” principle, but we each have a different interpretation of it. Our side does not use expressions like “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan” or “Taiwan independence”, because our Constitution does not allow that”.
Taiwan’s central news agency said Mr. Ma also proposed the consolidation of the “1992 consensus” under which both sides recognize the “one China’ policy” but interpret it in their respective ways.
“In less than a decade, the mainland and Taiwan will be completely unified”, said one poster. “There’s domestic politics, diplomacy, defense, economics”, Ma said.
Taiwan’s polarized politics pits the more nationalistic Greens (DPP) versus the Blues (KMT), who traditionally espouse a softer approach in dealing with China. Communist Party-ruled China still demands that Taiwan eventually be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary, while many citizens of democratic Taiwan increasingly prefer to simply maintain the separate status the island has carved out over more than six decades.
Taiwan has benefited from open economic trade with China as well as a tourism boom over the years. He had long wanted a meeting with Xi, and he said that the encounter was the product of two years of negotiations.
Saturday’s meeting is a “victory of peace and rationality”, said an oped in Beijing’s official People’s Daily.
Angry demonstrators tried to storm Parliament overnight and 27 were arrested at the airport on Saturday as Mr Ma headed to a summit his opponents say is a sell-out to Beijing which is bent on expanding its influence. The meeting was the subject of awkward and strained protocol.
Though opposed by a few in Taiwan, the meeting drew huge attention and overwhelmingly favorable response in China and across the Chinese-speaking world, as well as in Washington. And Taiwan wanted to avoid any appearance that it was subordinate to China.
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An activist protests against the Singapore meeting between Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou and C …
