Chinese President Xi Jinping stated during yesterday’s meeting with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing that “external interference” cannot prevent the reunification of the island with mainland China. A proponent of reconciliation with the mainland authorities, the former Taiwanese president, aged 73, began a tour of mainland China on April 1st, which he described as a “journey of peace” aimed at reducing bilateral tensions.
Xi and Ma are meeting for the first time since their historic summit in 2015 in Singapore when the Taiwanese president was still in power.
“The Chinese nation has gradually written an indivisible history of the two shores of the Taiwan Strait and carved out an era marked by blood ties. All compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese,” Xi Jinping told his guest.
China considers Taiwan one of its provinces, which it has not been able to reunite with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Photo: AFP
