Xi restates opposition to Taiwan independence in rare Beijing meeting with KMT leader

Chinese President Xi Jinping used a rare April 10, 2026, meeting in Beijing with Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun to restate Beijing's bottom line on Taiwan: China will not accept independence and still wants eventual reunification. Taiwan has been governed separately from China since 1949, but Beijing claims the island as its territory. Cheng, who leads the Kuomintang (KMT), said her visit was meant to lower tensions and push the Taiwan Strait away from conflict.

What happened

Xi met Cheng at the Great Hall of the People in what reports described as the first such encounter between China's leader and a top Taiwanese opposition figure in more than a decade. According to reports carried by The Japan Times and Japan Today, Xi repeated Beijing's one China position and said support for Taiwan independence was damaging peace in the strait. He also called on both sides to move toward reunification.

Cheng presented the visit as a peace mission. She said people on both sides wanted calmer relations and argued for institutional arrangements that could help prevent war. After the meeting, she said Xi had indicated respect for Taiwan's different social system and way of life. The KMT favors closer ties with Beijing than Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Taiwan's government rejected Beijing's framing. Officials said Taiwan's future can only be decided by Taiwan's people and urged Beijing to engage with Taipei's democratically elected government.

Why this matters

For foreigners in Japan, this is important less as a breakthrough than as a clear sign that Taiwan Strait tensions remain politically active even when both sides talk about peace. The meeting showed that Beijing is willing to engage Taiwan's opposition while continuing to isolate President Lai Ching-te's administration and repeat its opposition to independence.

That makes the story relevant to Japan-based readers because it concerns a nearby regional flashpoint, not a distant diplomatic dispute. For foreign residents, students, workers and businesses in Japan, the immediate takeaway is that the core positions have not changed: Beijing still frames reunification as a long-term goal, while Taiwan's elected government insists the island's future must be decided democratically. The meeting may lower the temperature in rhetoric for some audiences, but it did not resolve the underlying conflict.

Sources

• The Japan Times
• Japan Today