(Bloomberg) — A top Taiwanese opposition party figure’s trip to China just weeks after Beijing fired missiles over the island has sparked a backlash at home, despite his effort to criticize the exercises.
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Andrew Hsia, vice chairman of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, conveyed the Taiwanese public’s displeasure at China’s response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s landmark visit, according to a statement released late Wednesday by his party.
Hsia also called for a resumption of cross-strait talks and more flight links during the meeting near Shanghai with Zhang Zhijun, who heads the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. Beijing uses that organization to handle its affairs with Taiwan.
Zhang said the two men were “good friends” despite a “tense and tumultuous” cross-strait situation, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Wednesday. The Chinese official described the People’s Liberation Army drills were necessary to safeguard China’s sovereignty and counter what Beijing calls Taiwanese independence forces.
There are growing concerns across the region that Taiwan could become a reflash point. Hsia has been criticized by Taipei’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party for traveling to China so soon after Beijing’s most provocative military exercises in decades.
“As China held drills against Taiwan, the KMT shouldn’t go to China to suck up to the CCP,” DPP lawmaker Wang Ting-yu said in a video statement sent to reporters Thursday, referring to China’s ruling Communist Party. Wang accused the KMT of reneging on a promise that Hsia wouldn’t conduct any political meetings.
The trip comes as the KMT prepares to attempt a comeback in local elections in November against the DPP, which has emphasized Taiwan’s need to adopt a stronger stance against Beijing. President Xi Jinping military pressure on Taiwan — a self-ruled democracy that China considers its territory — has deepened skepticism among the Taiwanese public about closer links to Beijing.
Eric Chu, chairman of the KMT, which favors eventual unification between the two sides, welcomed Pelosi and played down comments from within his party that her trip was a provocation. Almost 90% of people surveyed in Taiwan said they opposed Beijing’s military drills in a poll by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council.
For her part, President Tsai Ing-wen says Taiwan doesn’t need to declare independence, because the island is already a de facto state.
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