China’s Xi hosts former Taiwan president in Beijing, in rare meeting echoing bygone era of warmer ties

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping held rare talks on Wednesday with a former president of Taiwan who supports closer ties with China, a highly unusual meeting just weeks before the democratic island swears in a new leader Beijing openly loathes.

Ma Ying-jeou, who led Taiwan from 2008 to 2016 and is currently in Beijing on an 11-day tour across China, met Xi on Wednesday afternoon, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The carefully choregraphed moment is steeped in political symbolism: it’s the first time a former president of Taiwan has been hosted by China’s top leader in Beijing since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) fled to Taipei in 1949.

In this photo provided by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, from left, Australian Navy ship HMAS Warramunga, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces ship JS Akebono and United States Navy ship USS Mobile (LCD-26) maneuver during the first Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity at the disputed South China Sea on Sunday, April 7, 2024. The United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines held their first joint naval exercises, including anti-submarine warfare training, in a show of force Sunday in the South China Sea where Beijing's aggressive actions to assert its territorial claims have caused alarm. (Armed Forces of the Philippines via AP)

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It is also the first meeting between Xi and former KMT leader Ma, since their historic summit in Singapore in 2015.

But their reunion also