Xi says nobody can stop 'family reunion' with Taiwan

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping told former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday (April 10) that outside inference could not stop the "family reunion" between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and that there are no issues that cannot be discussed.

Since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists, no serving Taiwanese leader has visited China.

Ma, president from 2008 to 2016, last year became the first former Taiwanese leader to visit China, and is now on his second trip to the country, at a time of simmering military tension across the strait.

Ma had been widely expected to meet Xi this time around, having first met Xi in Singapore in late 2015 for a landmark summit shortly before the current Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, won election.

Meeting Ma in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, where foreign leaders normally hold talks with top Chinese officials, Xi said that people on both sides of the strait are Chinese.

"External interference cannot stop the historical trend of reunion of the country and family," Xi said, in comments reported by Taiwanese media.

Xi did not elaborate but in Chinese terminology referring to external interference over Taiwan is generally aimed at the support Taipei gets from Western countries like the United States, especially arms sales which infuriate Beijing.

People on both sides of the strait are Chinese, Xi said.

"There is no rancour that cannot be resolved, no problem that cannot be discussed, and no force that can separate us.".

China has never renounced the use of force to bring democratically-governed Taiwan under its control, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert its