Taipei, Taiwan (CNN) – Taiwan’s former President Ma Ying-jeou will visit mainland China next week, the first such trip by a former Taiwanese leader since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Ma, a senior member of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), will be in mainland China between March 27 and April 7, his foundation said in a statement Sunday.
According to the foundation, he will pay respect to his ancestors in the southwestern province of Hunan and lead a delegation of Taiwanese students to interact with counterparts from mainland China in a number of cities.
Though rumored to be private, the trip is steeped in historical symbolism and comes at a time of rising tensions over Taiwan’s future.
China’s ruling Communist Party has never controlled Taiwan, but claims the island’s self-governing democracy as its own and has repeatedly refused to rule out a violent takeover.
At the end of the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took control of mainland China, while the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan — with both sides claiming to be China’s legitimate representatives in the decades that followed, leading up to Taiwan’s transition to democracy in the 1990s.
But in recent decades, relations between Beijing and the KMT have grown ever closer, a rapprochement that peaked during Ma’s tenure.
Ma served as Taiwan’s president between 2008 and 2016, during which time he forged stronger economic ties between China and the democratically-ruled island but kept Beijing’s push for reunification in check.
Its perceived proximity to Beijing, particularly on the economic front, sparked protests and a fierce backlash from voters.
The KMT lost the last two elections to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is far more skeptical of Beijing and rejects the tacit recognition that both sides recognize their belonging to “one China”, albeit with different interpretations of what that means.
Since the DPP took power in 2016, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has increased economic, diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan.
Ma’s historic journey comes against this feverish geopolitical backdrop, and comes as Taiwan and the United States step up efforts to counter China’s growing military capabilities.
His trip also comes at a politically sensitive time. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen will soon make a stopover in the US on her way to meeting diplomatic allies in Latin America, an official with Taiwan’s Overseas Community Affairs Council told lawmakers earlier this month. US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also said he plans to meet with her when she is in the US.
Taiwan is scheduled to hold its next presidential election in January next year. Tsai will not stand for re-election.
Fears of a Chinese invasion have hung over Taiwan for more than seven decades, but they have been compounded by both Xi’s increasing assertiveness and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The KMT has long resisted being labeled a “pro-Beijing” party. But his leadership, including Ma, has often pushed to improve relations.
KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia visited Beijing last month to meet with senior Communist Party leader Wang Huning.
In contrast, Beijing has cut off official communications with Taiwan’s Tsai-led government.
In 2015, Ma and Xi held a historic face-to-face meeting in Singapore — the first meeting between Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party leaders since the end of the Chinese Civil War, though not on either side of the Straits.
Ma’s foundation said a meeting between Xi and Ma is not currently scheduled for the trip.
Taiwan’s presidential office said in a statement Sunday that Ma will be required to report details of his itinerary to the government before and after his visit to China.