Xi Tells Taiwan's Main Opposition Chief That China Wants Peace, Unification

China’s President Xi Jinping welcomed the leader of Taiwan’s biggest opposition party to a landmark meeting Friday, reaffirming Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over the self-governing democracy and giving a thinly veiled warning against interference from the US.

Cross-strait relations should be “firmly in the hands of the Chinese people,” Xi told Kuomintang Chairperson Cheng Li-wun before they headed into a closed-door meeting. The KMT leader echoed his remarks by saying the Taiwan Strait should not be a geopolitical flashpoint or “a chessboard for external interference.”