Matt Bevan

In Taiwan, the students were painfully aware that they might face the same fate as the protesters in Tiananmen Square, but they didn't.

After six days of protest, President Li agreed to a timetable for democratic reform.

Hopeful but sceptical, the students left the square.

As they left, they chanted, we'll be back, expecting that they would need to return to make sure President Lee followed through on his promises.

Within six years, Taiwan was a full democracy and an extraordinary one at that.

So that was the early 1990s.

Chiang's Nationalist Party had been holed up on an island for 40 years, creating an authoritarian economic miracle.

Now they were facing elections.

So buckle up when I tell you what the current leader of the Nationalist Party is up to now.

Zheng Liwen is on a six-day trip to China.

Zhang Liwen, the opposition leader of Taiwan, was given the red carpet treatment by the leader of the Communist Party, Mao's heir, Xi Jinping, while the governing party back in Taiwan begged her to stop.

While Taiwanese people protested loudly back home.

Zhang Liyuan is the leader of a political movement that for a century has been at war with the party Xi Jinping leads, a group that essentially defines itself as not the Communist Party.

So the question is, why would she go there?

This meeting is historic for multiple reasons, and it could have greater implications for Taiwan's China policy moving forward.

That story's next on If You're Listening.

This episode of If You're Listening was written by Adair Shepard and me, Matt Bevan.

Supervising producer is Cara Jensen-McKinnon.

Sound engineer is Anna John.

It's produced by Adair Shepard and Pat Sunderland.