Taiwan’s ex-President Ma Ying-jeou visits China on a historic visit

Asia-Pacific, News March 29, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

Taiwan’s former President Ma Ying-jeou arrived in Shanghai to start his ten-day trip to mainland China on March 27, 2023. Ma is the former or sitting Taiwanese leader to visit Mainland China since the communist revolution of 1949.

Ma is the former chairman and a senior member of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) party which is currently in opposition to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan. Ma served as the President of Taiwan from 2008 to 2016.

Although his trip is a private one in nature, as he plans to visit historic monuments and his ancestral hometown in southwestern Hunan province, Ma would also participate in official engagements leading a delegation of Taiwanese students to interact with counterparts from mainland China in a number of cities.

Ma is not scheduled to meet any senior official from the Chinese Communist Party or Chinese administration. His visit is being criticized by Taipei and particularly the ruling party and his successor Tsai Ing-wen.

Ma’s trip to mainland China comes at a time when the tensions between Taipei and Beijing and rising. Aware of the ongoing situation, the 73-year-old former Taiwanese President said that “Apart from going to make offerings to my ancestors, I am also taking Taiwan university students to the mainland for exchanges with them, hoping to improve the current cross-strait atmosphere through the enthusiasm and interaction of young people, so peace can come even faster and sooner to us here.”

“The Chinese people on both sides of the Strait should work together in pursuit of peace, avoid war, and be committed to the revitalization of China. This is an inevitable responsibility that we must work hard to fulfill,” Ma said in his short remarks before starting his historic trip.

Taiwan’s ruling party DPP released a statement regarding his visit accusing Ma, a member of the Kuomintang (KMT), of “endorsing” Beijing’s Taiwan policy with his visit. “We should be more united, but it’s regrettable that the KMT stands with the Chinese communists and ex-president Ma disregards public disapproval to visit China at this moment,” DPP said in its statement.

^{Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou arrives at the airport before departing on a visit to Shanghai, China, as for the first time a former or current Taiwanese leader will be visiting since the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island in 1949 in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on March 27, 2023. (Image Credit: Reuters/Ann Wang)}

At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took control of mainland China declaring it the People’s Republic of China while the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan declaring it the Republic of China. Both sides claimed to be the legitimate representative of China in the following decades. It was not until the 1990s that the administration of the People’s Republic of China gained majority acknowledgment from the world to be the legitimate representation of China.

Over time, KMT became closer to Beijing and the Chinese Communist party. Relations between Taipei and Beijing were at their peak during the Ma administration. Ma met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in late 2015, shortly before Tsai was elected President of the self-governing island and relations between Taipei and Beijing started to deteriorate.