BEIJING (AFP/Reuters) - China's President Xi Jinping met Taiwan's opposition party leader Cheng Li-wun in Beijing on Friday, telling the visiting delegation he had "full confidence" that Taiwanese and Chinese people would be united.
Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman Cheng is the party's first leader to visit China in a decade.
Xi told Cheng, as the two met on Friday, that "the general trend of compatriots on both sides of the Strait getting closer, edging nearer and becoming united will not change".
"This is an inevitable part of history. We have full confidence in this," Xi said during the talks carried by Taiwanese media.
He also said China was willing to strengthen dialogue with groups in Taiwan, including the KMT, on the "common political foundation of... opposing Taiwan independence".
Earlier, she told Xi that the Taiwan Strait would "no longer be a focal point of potential conflict" and "both sides should transcend political confrontation".
She also said Xi had responded "positively" to her proposal that the sides work toward Taiwan participating in international organisations such as Interpol and regional trade agreements.
Taiwanese lawmakers have been at loggerheads over the government's plan to spend NT$1.25 trillion ($39 billion) on defence, which has been stalled for months in parliament, controlled by opposition parties including the KMT.
Defence spending
Cheng's trip comes a month before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing for a summit with Xi.
The United States has been piling pressure on Taiwanese opposition lawmakers to back a proposal for defence purchases, including US weapons.
Cheng has railed against the government´s proposal, insisting "Taiwan isn't an ATM" and instead backing a KMT plan to allocate NT$380 billion ($12 billion) for US weapons with the option for more acquisitions.
While KMT party members regularly fly to China for exchanges with officials, its last leader to visit was Hung Hsiu-chu in 2016.
Cross-strait relations have worsened in particular since the election of Tsai´s successor, Lai Ching-te, who Beijing considers a separatist.
Cheng landed in Shanghai on Tuesday evening, saying shortly after her arrival that "the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are not doomed to war, as the international community has feared".
The KMT leader also travelled to the eastern city of Nanjing, where she visited the mausoleum of revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, one of the few Chinese historical figures revered in both Beijing and Taipei.