By Shannon Tiezzi
Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping will hold an historic meeting on November 7 in Singapore.
In a first, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 7, according to Taiwan’s Central New Agency. Both leaders will travel to Singapore for the meeting. Ma is expected to publicly explain the details of the trip in a press briefing on November 5. The Mainland Affairs Council will also hold a press conference November 4 to discuss the trip.
It’s a huge breakthrough for cross-strait relations: the leaders of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China haven’t met since the PRC was founded in 1949. The PRC in particular has been wary about having such a meeting, worrying that it would convey legitimacy on Taiwan’s separate system of government. An official meeting between Xi and Ma as presidents is out of the question from Beijing’s point of view – meanwhile, Taiwanese don’t want to see a meeting under an alternative format, for fear that would undermine their president’s international status. It’s not yet clear what formula Xi and Ma will use when they do meet together, something that will need to be clarified at Ma’s upcoming press conference.
Taiwan previously pushed hard for a Ma-Xi meeting at the 2014 APEC summit, which was held in Beijing. The PRC wasn’t willing to host Ma, however; a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office said that an international summit wasn’t the right venue for such a meeting.
Read the full story at The Diplomat