Taipei Taiwan – Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week in what a spokesman called a bid to ease tensions between the self-rul
Taipei, Taiwan – Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week, in what a spokesman called a bid to ease tensions between the self-ruled island and the mainland.
Ma presided over a period of warm ties with Beijing, but left office under a cloud after a trade deal with the mainland failed to win approval amid the island’s largest protests since the 1990s.
Ma’s proposed visit comes as China’s People Liberation Army sends fighter jets towards Taiwan on a near daily basis, and as official communications between the two governments have broken off. China’s ruling government claims Taiwan is part of its national territory, but Taiwan’s current ruling government says it’s already a sovereign state that is not part of China.
Ma, who’s a member of the opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang), will lead a delegation of academics and students as well as his former presidential staffers from March 27 to April 7, his office said Sunday.
