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Ma Ying-jeou’s tour is the first since the end of the civil war in 1949 and comes amid intensifying efforts by Beijing to subsume Taiwan as a province
Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s former president, will visit China this month in the first visit by a current or former leader since the defeated Nationalist Chinese government fled to the island at the end of the civil war in 1949.
The high profile visit has been presented by Ma and his party, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), as a chance to boost friendly cross-strait exchanges at a time of extreme disconnection, which has been driven by Beijing’s plans to annex Taiwan and exacerbated by the pandemic. However it is also likely to fuel domestic political division between the KMT and ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over relations with China.
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