Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Ma Ying-jeou/Facebook
CHINESE PRESIDENT XI JINPING met with former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou today. This was the first time that Xi and Ma have met since 2015, when Ma was still president. The two met in Singapore in 2015, while today’s meeting took place in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People.
Today’s meeting was preceded by a trip to China by Ma in March 2023, during which Ma visited his family grave and a number of historic sites. The March 2023 trip was the first time that a former ROC head of state had visited China since the end of the Chinese Civil War.
Similarly to the trip last year, Ma’s trip was framed as a visit to China with a student delegation. While last year’s trip was framed as dialing back cross-strait tensions and likely occurred with electoral aims in mind ahead of the January 2024 presidential elections, this time, Ma’s trip was framed as facilitating cross-strait dialogue and affirming shared opposition toward Taiwanese independence. Ma has made headlines for crying publicly on five occasions during the trip, resulting in some mockery by the pan-Green camp.
Although the trip was originally reported as to take place on April 8th, it is thought that the meeting was potentially rescheduled today to coincide with a meeting between US president Joe Biden, Philippine president Bongbong Marcos Jr. and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida.
What is notable is the secrecy that surrounded today’s meeting. Taiwanese press were only informed yesterday night to test for COVID-19 twice before noon and gather at the Great Hall of the People by 2:45 PM. There was no official announcement that Ma would be meeting with Xi, but double tests for COVID-19 are only required for events in which Xi is present.
It was only until this morning, then, that KMT chair Eric Chu stated that the Ma-Xi meeting was on and would take place at 4 PM this afternoon. Likewise, Chinese state-run media outlet CCTV later reported that Ma and Xi would meet this afternoon, confirming that the meeting would take place.
Livestream of the meeting from CtiTV
Much speculation ahead of time swirled around whether Ma would meet with Xi in the Taiwan Hall or Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People, which would be interpreted as assigning a differing level of importance to the trip based on past precedent.
Ma eventually met with Xi in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People, which pan-Blue media played up as where significant events such as China joining the World Trade Organization had taken place in the past, as well as where Xi had received visiting dignitaries. Namely, the pan-Green camp has sometimes claimed that Ma was not accorded the respect due to a former head of state during his preceding visits to China, which is why the pan-Blue camp would be eager to defend against such allegations.
A livestream of the meeting on CtiTV, usually considered among the most blue of Taiwan’s media outlets, cut out at a certain point seemingly because of an intervention by security. Reporters were not allowed to bring their cell phones to the meeting, though photographs were allowed for some outlets. To begin with, the only Taiwanese media outlets allowed to report on the Ma-Xi meeting directly from Beijing were CtiTV, UDN, China Television, TVBS, and ETToday, which are mostly pan-Blue outlets.
Yet this does not appear to have prevented the censoring of reporting. In what remarks were heard of the dialogue between Ma and Xi, both stress the shared Chinese culture between Taiwan and China, as well as the need for cross-strait exchanges. Xi also takes the time to express his goodwill toward Taiwanese young people, in light of rising identity trends that indicate Taiwanese identity and declining Chinese identity having resulted in backlash against the KMT and attempts by China to draw Taiwan politically closer to it. At one point, Ma is heard to misspeak and refers to the “ROC”, when this is usually kept out of official dialogues between Chinese and Taiwanese politicians because of the conflicting claims between both sides.
The secrecy of the meeting between Ma and Xi may not compare favorably to the 2015 meeting between the two leaders, which was comparatively more open perhaps due to taking place in Singapore rather than Beijing–even the livestream of Ma and Xi’s comments was also cut after five minutes on that occasion as well. Still, the subsequent framing of the Ma-Xi meeting is to be seen.
In the meantime, the KMT appears set to continue to conduct exchanges between Taiwan and China on the basis of direct communications with the CCP that circumvent the elected government of Taiwan. KMT chair Eric Chu announced today that vice chair Sean Lien would be dispatched to attend the Straits Forum in June. Still, though the KMT hopes to emphasize its traditional claim to be the only political party in Taiwan able to negotiate directly with the CCP as justifying why it should hold political power in Taiwan, the optics of meetings between CCP and KMT that lack transparency and circumvent the central government may also result in some backlash against the KMT.