Ex-Taiwanese president visits China as incumbent readying for trip to Americas

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Taiwan’s former President Ma Ying-jeou reached Shanghai city for a 12-day trip to China on Monday.

Ma, 72, was received by Communist Party of China officials before he left for Nanjing where he will “pay respect to his ancestors on the occasion of the Qingming Festival, or Tomb-sweeping Day,” Chinese daily Global Times reported.

A senior member of the opposition Kuomintang and former president of the island nation, who was in office between 2008 and 2016, is leading about 30 students and his former aides to visit Wuhan, Changsha, Chongqing, and Shanghai besides Nanjing.

His trip comes when Taiwan’s incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen is preparing for her 10-day trip to the island nation’s diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize from March 29 via the US.

Her delegation will also make a stopover in New York City, Taiwanese Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan said.

Reports claim Tsai may also address an event in New York hosted by the Hudson Institute on March 30. However, her office is silent on it.

The Taiwanese president’s trip to Central America comes when one of Taipei’s only 14 diplomatic allies, Honduras, broke away from the island nation and established full relations with Beijing under the so-called one-China principle.

It was the ninth diplomatic ally of Taipei that severed ties with Taiwan since Tsai, former chair of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, rose to power in 2016.

China claims Taiwan as its “breakaway province” while Taipei has insisted on its independence since 1949.

Reports had also claimed that Tsai “would meet with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in his home state of California and give a speech at the Reagan library in Simi Valley.”

China has been vehemently opposing any official contact between Washington and Taipei and sees it as a violation of Beijing’s diplomatic relations with the US.

Last August, tensions between Beijing and Washington saw an unprecedented upturn when then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid an unannounced trip to Taiwan.