Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is answering questions from the press at Taoyuan International Airport on the 27th before his visit to China. [Image source=Yonhap News]
Former and current top leaders of Taiwan visited China for the first time in 74 years.
China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Ma Ying-jeou, former Taiwanese president (73), visited China on the 27th, marking the first visit by a former or current top Taiwanese leader since the end of the Chinese Civil War 74 years ago.
Ma's delegation arrived in Shanghai by flight that afternoon and headed to Nanjing. Officials from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee and the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee came to greet them at the airport.
According to Xinhua News Agency, during this visit to China, Ma is scheduled to visit Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Chongqing, and Shanghai.
Thus, Ma became the first former Taiwanese top leader to visit China since the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887?1975), was defeated in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan.
No current Taiwanese president has visited China yet.
Ma is expected to travel from Shanghai to Nanjing and Wuhan, then visit his ancestral home in Xiangtan, Hunan Province to perform ancestral rites, before passing through Chongqing and returning to Shanghai.
Nanjing was the former capital of the Kuomintang government, and Chongqing served as the temporary capital. Wuhan is where the 1911 "Wuchang Uprising," which triggered the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, took place.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) President Tsai Ing-wen has a "pro-US, anti-China" stance, but Ma, from the opposition Kuomintang, pursues a relatively moderate China policy.
President Tsai is scheduled to visit Guatemala and Belize, Central American countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, for 9 nights and 10 days starting on the 29th, with stopovers in New York and Los Angeles, USA, on her way there and back.
There is a possibility that President Tsai will meet with Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in California.
Because of this, President Tsai's visit to the U.S. and Ma's visit to China are linked to the Taiwanese presidential election in January next year.
During his visit to China, Ma is expected to clarify his stance on cross-strait (China and Taiwan) relations and appeal to Taiwanese voters.
China is also expected to warmly welcome Ma and highlight the conflict between the Kuomintang and the DPP within Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Ma, Tsai's predecessor, served as Taiwan's 12th and 13th president from 2008 to 2016.
In November 2015, during his tenure, he held a historic cross-strait summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore.
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