Taiwan’s ex-president Ma to visit China in landmark trip

TAIPEI: Former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou will visit China this month, his office said today, the first time a former or current Taiwanese leader has visited since the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island in 1949.

The trip will be at a time of heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei as China keeps up its military and political pressure to try and get democratically-elected Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty.

Ma, who remains a senior member of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) opposition party, held a landmark meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Singapore in late 2015, shortly before current Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen was elected.