A senior leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s main opposition party, will visit China this week and meet its top Taiwan policy-maker, the party said on Monday, amid continued military and political tensions between the two sides.
China has during the past three years ramped up pressure on Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty, including staging regular military drills near the democratically governed island. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s territorial claims.
The KMT said its deputy chairman, Andrew Hsia, would leave for China on Wednesday and meet Song Tao, the newly appointed head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in a rare high-level interaction between top politicians from Taiwan and China.
Hsia, a former Taiwanese diplomat and one-time head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, and his delegation will “conduct exchanges and dialogue on the basis of equality and dignity”, the KMT said.