Overview
- Xi and KMT chair Cheng Li-wun, who met Friday at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, called for peace, opposed formal Taiwan independence, and cited the 1992 Consensus as their basis for talks.
- Taiwan's security chief warned this week that Beijing runs a 'peace-and-war pressure' strategy that pairs near-daily military flights and ships with political engagement to divide opinion and blunt support for U.S. weapons.
- The KMT-led legislature has stalled a NT$1.25 trillion (about US$40 billion) special defense budget to build layered air defenses, as a recent bipartisan U.S. delegation pressed for passage and the party floated a smaller plan.
- Analysts say Beijing may use the meeting to argue that dialogue reduces the need for U.S.-Taiwan arms deals before the planned Xi–Trump summit in May.
- The 1992 Consensus holds that both sides say there is one China, which the KMT accepts as a basis for dialogue and the DPP rejects, helping explain why party leaders can meet even as official cross-strait ties remain frozen.