Why Xi Jinping Is Meeting With Taiwan’s Ex-President

When China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and then-President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan shook hands in Singapore back in 2015, they each extolled their meeting — the first top-level talks between the rival governments — as a breakthrough that could pave the way to a durable peace, ending decades of enmity.

But on Wednesday, as the two men met again in Beijing, the prospects for an amicable settlement over Taiwan’s future seemed more distant than ever.

Mr. Ma, who pursued closer engagement with China during his eight years in office, is no longer president of Taiwan. Fewer and fewer Taiwanese people now share his belief that Taiwan must see its future as a part of a greater China.

Since Mr. Ma left office in 2016, Mr. Xi has frozen high-level contacts with Taiwan, sought to isolate it on the global stage and tried to intimidate it with a tightening military presence around the island. Mr. Xi is profoundly suspicious of Taiwan’s current leadership, which has sought to assert the sovereignty of the island democracy.

The meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was the first time that a Chinese leader has met a former president of Taiwan on Chinese soil. Mr. Xi and Mr. Ma held a handshake for around 15 seconds and smiled for the cameras. They then sat at a long table like two statesman entering negotiations, even though Mr. Ma has long been out of power.

In opening remarks, Mr. Xi praised Mr. Ma as a patriot who had promoted “peaceful development” across the Taiwan Strait, and he pressed Beijing’s position that Taiwan must accept that it is a part of China.