China and the Kuomintang: Cooperation or Political Penetration in Taiwan?
- Jason Fernando
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Cross-strait relations have deteriorated since the election of Tsai Ing-wen in 2016 and have further hardened under Lai Ching-te since 2024. Beijing has curtailed formal communication channels with Taipei while increasing military pressure through naval and air operations around Taiwan. At the same time, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has secured three consecutive electoral victories, consolidating a trajectory that Beijing rejects as separatist. The result is a competition that now extends beyond military deterrence into contested claims over identity and political legitimacy in Taiwan.
Since 2019, both sides have also moved in diverging directions on mobility and economic exchange. China suspended individual travel permits for mainland residents visiting Taiwan, while Taipei tightened entry requirements, including additional visa verification. Since 2021, Beijing has restricted imports of Taiwanese agricultural and fishery products, including pineapples, groupers, squid, and tuna, while advancing infrastructure concepts such as a potential bridge linking the mainland with Matsu and Kinmen. These measures suggest a growing use of economic tools as instruments of political leverage.
Beijing’s differentiated engagement with Taiwan’s political actors is not new. Meetings between Xi Jinping and Kuomintang (KMT) figures, including former President Ma Ying-jeou, reflect a pattern in which China maintains separate channels for governing authorities and opposition actors seen as more open to dialogue. This approach has long been part of Beijing’s effort to engage Taiwan’s internal political pluralism as a potential vector of influence.
Against this backdrop, Cheng-Li Wun, Chair of the KMT, visited China from 7 to 12 April 2026 at the invitation of the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping. Her itinerary from Shanghai to Nanjing and Beijing marked the first visit by a KMT leader in roughly a decade and appeared to reopen a dormant political channel.
The visit took place amid a domestic deadlock in Taiwan over a US$40 billion defense budget proposed by the Lai administration. The proposal was rejected by opposition parties, including the KMT, which criticized its scale and transparency. The KMT instead advanced a US$12 billion alternative focused on systems already approved by the United States. The dispute highlights how defense policy has become a central axis of political polarization in Taiwan.
In Beijing, Xi Jinping met with KMT leadership in a carefully managed setting. He reiterated narratives of shared historical identity and emphasized peaceful resolution of differences. More importantly, the meeting appeared to elevate the KMT as a parallel interlocutor outside Taiwan’s formal governing institutions. Xi also placed cross-strait relations within a longer horizon shaped by Taiwan’s 2028 elections, which many analysts view as a potential turning point.
Following the meeting, Beijing announced partial adjustments in cross-strait connectivity, including the resumption of selected flights and eased restrictions on certain Taiwanese exports. It also signaled support for renewed communication with the KMT. These steps suggest that economic access and mobility may increasingly be conditioned, explicitly or implicitly, on political alignment rather than treated as neutral channels.
This reflects a broader pattern of conditional engagement. Economic and political incentives appear increasingly calibrated to influence Taiwan’s internal political balance, while policy ambiguity preserves Beijing’s flexibility across multiple domestic actors.
A more consequential development lies in Cheng’s reinterpretation of the 1992 Consensus. She defined it as recognition of “One China,” departing from the KMT’s traditional formulation of “One China, respective interpretations.” She also rejected links to “One Country, Two Systems,” instead framing the consensus as acknowledgment that both sides of the Strait belong to one China. This reframing reduces the ambiguity that has historically helped stabilize cross-strait relations.
Cheng also expressed openness to high-level engagement, including a possible meeting with Xi Jinping if it contributes to stability. She further described China as an alternative governance model distinct from Western systems, presenting it as a potential source of order in a shifting international environment.
Operationally, subsequent meetings between KMT representatives and Chinese officials, including Song Tao, were used to test the reactivation of party-to-party channels. These discussions emphasized continued exchanges and reiterated opposition to Taiwanese independence while endorsing “peaceful development,” signaling an effort to revive institutional formats that have remained largely inactive since 2016.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council rejected these developments, arguing that such exchanges lack legitimacy because they bypass formal intergovernmental channels. Taipei maintains that cross-strait issues must be handled through state-to-state negotiations on an equal footing.
Domestically, the visit has deepened political polarization. The KMT argues that engagement with Beijing is necessary for regional stability, while pro-sovereignty actors view such outreach as weakening Taiwan’s strategic position under sustained Chinese pressure.
Cheng also suggested that a future KMT-led government could invite Xi Jinping to visit Taiwan. She described identification as “Chinese” as natural, despite survey data from Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study showing that roughly two-thirds of respondents identify primarily as “Taiwanese,” reflecting a long-term identity shift.
The delegation also visited Nanjing, a city symbolically tied to KMT history as its wartime capital before the party’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Since then, Taiwan has developed as a separate political entity, even as Beijing continues to assert sovereignty over the island.
Over time, China appears to have consolidated a dual-track strategy toward Taiwan. Military pressure continues through sustained air and naval activity, while economic and political incentives are selectively extended to domestic actors. This combination may create a structured asymmetry in which costs of resistance rise while benefits of cooperation remain limited but politically salient.
Within this framework, the KMT can be interpreted as an institutional channel through which Beijing engages Taiwan’s domestic political system. Communication with the party continues even as official channels remain frozen since 2016, illustrating how cross-strait competition operates at both interstate and intrastate levels.
The implications extend beyond the Taiwan Strait. Beijing’s engagement with Taiwan’s opposition may reinforce perceptions of internal political fragmentation, shaping external views of Taiwan’s cohesion and influencing debates in Washington over regional stability and deterrence.
If sustained, this trajectory suggests that cross-strait competition will be shaped not only by military balance but also by the resilience of Taiwan’s political system under sustained strategic pressure through non-state channels.
This article written by Jason Fernando, an Independent researcher in International Relations, with research interests in Indo-Pacific security and Chinese foreign policy.