China’s President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has met Cheng Li-wun, chair of Taiwan’s main opposition party – the Kuomintang (KMT).

Cheng is visiting China at the invitation of the CPC Central Committee and Xi. She is the first KMT chair to lead a delegation to China in a decade. Prior to arriving in Beijing, the delegation travelled to Jiangsu province and Shanghai where they toured various historical and industry sites.

The meeting came amid continued cross-strait political sensitivity, with both sides maintaining formal channels of party-to-party engagement despite strained official relations.

Beijing had suspended formal high-level communication with Taiwan in 2016 after the election of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Tsai Ing-wen. At the time and in the years since, China cited Tsai's refusal to endorse the “one China” principle as the reason. Of the visit by Cheng, the DPP has criticised Cheng’s visit, accusing her of essentially being "subservient" to Beijing, the BBC reports.

Meeting at the Great Hall of the People, Xi said afterwards that the talks were aimed at “safeguarding the peace and stability of our shared homeland” and promoting the “peaceful development” of cross-strait relations, adding that future generations should “share in a bright and beautiful future”.

He added that Beijing was willing, on the basis of opposition to Taiwan independence, to expand its current exchanges and dialogue with all parties in the country, including the KMT.

Xi then went on to reiterate Beijing’s position that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and share a desire for peace. For her part, Cheng said the “rejuvenation of the Chinese people is a shared aspiration of the people on both sides of the Strait”, adding that cooperation would be a “positive contribution to world peace and human progress”: comments that will not sit well in Taiwan where the overwhelming majority of the 24mn population see themselves as Taiwanese, with just a small percentage identifying as Chinese according to recent polls.