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Taiwan’s new opposition leader wants to talk to Xi Jinping
Cheng Li-wun tells The Economist she hopes to meet China’s president early this year
Jan 29th 2026|TAIPEI|5 min read
RISK COMES naturally to Cheng Li-wun, Taiwan’s opposition leader. She began her career as a student activist in the 1990s, seeking independence for her homeland and castigating the Kuomintang (KMT), the ruling party at the time. Then she stunned colleagues by joining the KMT. Now, as that party’s new leader, she is making her biggest gamble yet. As China steps up military drills around Taiwan, which it sees as its territory, she is blocking efforts to boost defence spending. She thinks Taiwan’s people should accept that they are Chinese. And she hopes to bring her party back to power by pursuing reconciliation with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
**“The most important task of my tenure is to advance peace across the Taiwan Strait,” **she told The Economist in an interview on January 27th. To that end, she revealed that after a nine-year hiatus, the KMT will resume dialogue with China’s Communist Party in early February, starting with exchanges between their think-tanks. She says she hopes to visit China in the first half of 2026 to meet Mr Xi (who sent her a congratulatory telegram after her election in October, expressing hope that they could work together towards unification). “We must stop deliberately vilifying everything related to China,” she says.
It is a controversial strategy, even for some within her party. The KMT lost the past three presidential elections to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which views Taiwan as a separate country. Opinion polls show that a majority of Taiwan’s people distrust China’s government, have little appetite for unification and consider themselves Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Ms Cheng’s platform is also troubling for America, which is committed to helping the island defend itself but insists Taiwan must spend much more on its own armed forces. American officials believe Mr Xi has ordered his generals to be capable of taking Taiwan by 2027.
Yet Ms Cheng, 56, believes that she can help avert an attack—and win round voters by the time of the next presidential election, in 2028. She admits that her views on national identity are out of step with public opinion but blames the DPP’s efforts to “de-Sinicise” Taiwan. Besides, she believes that national identity will not be the defining political issue of the next few years. “What matters more is cross-strait relations,” she says. “That’s what I believe will truly determine how people vote.”
Her message plays on two main fears. One is that if the DPP wins again in 2028 China’s leadership could lose hope of peacefully unifying Taiwan with the mainland.** “Once it holds no expectations for Taiwan, the only way it can resolve or address the Taiwan issue would be through means none of us wish to see,**” she says. The other fear is that American support for Taiwan is wavering. She cites President Donald Trump’s demands that Taiwan increase defence spending to 10% of GDP and shift to America 40% of its semiconductor industry, which produces most of the world’s top-end chips. *“For many Taiwanese, piecing together this information makes them feel that America is abandoning Taiwan,”* she says.
Critics view such talk as scaremongering. Although China has developed formidable capabilities to invade or blockade Taiwan (and often practises doing so), it is far from clear that it could succeed without suffering huge losses and devastating the global economy. Mr Xi has also just purged his military leadership. DPP leaders accuse Ms Cheng of echoing Chinese propaganda and endangering Taiwan’s security by blocking defence spending. Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has pledged to increase military spending to 5% of GDP by 2030. He has also proposed a $40bn supplementary defence budget this year, mainly for American weapons. Yet both plans are being blocked in parliament by the KMT and its allies, which together hold a majority.
In Ms Cheng’s telling Mr Lai is to blame for not providing more details of his military spending plans. The figure he has proposed “crowds out all other needs”, she says. She declines to specify how much Taiwan should spend on defence, but says it can never match China’s firepower. Instead, she argues Taiwan’s security should be achieved through “reasonable” military spending combined with negotiations with Mr Xi. And she faults Mr Lai for refusing to accept the consensus agreed with China in 1992, when the KMT was in power. That stipulated that both sides of the Taiwan Strait are part of “one China”, while allowing for different interpretations. Because the DPP rejects that formula as legally invalid (and a trap), China has suspended official talks since it came to power in 2016. Embracing the 1992 consensus today “would significantly reduce the likelihood of military confrontation”, Ms Cheng says.
As to the desired outcome of such negotiations, Ms Cheng chooses her words carefully. In meeting Mr Xi, she says her main goal is to secure an explicit public commitment that both sides should work to maintain peace, acknowledging that war would bring “unimaginably catastrophic consequences”. Can he be trusted? To avoid damaging its international image, China must “be true to its word”, she says. “Credibility is paramount.”
For the longer term, she declines to say whether the ultimate goal should be peaceful unification (as a former KMT president has suggested). Within her four-year term, she says it would already be a big achievement to set up a framework for maintaining peace. “As for whether the status quo might change thereafter, I only hope it occurs under circumstances acceptable to people on both sides,” she adds.
Her talk of reconciliation is all the more striking, given her past. Though her father was a soldier in the Nationalist army that fled to Taiwan from the mainland in 1949, she became a student protester who was drawn to the DPP. She left it in 2002, disillusioned by what she saw as corruption and intolerance of dissent within its ranks. Joining the KMT three years later, she quickly earned a reputation as a combative public speaker. But she only recently became more outspoken about her own sense of Chinese identity.
Whether she will be the KMT’s presidential candidate in 2028 is unclear: she says she is focusing on her current job. But as the party’s chairwoman, she will shape its platform for local elections this November, as well as the presidential vote.** Already, she is shaking up Taiwan’s politics in ways that could alter the precarious balance of relations between Taiwan, China and America. The stakes have never been higher. And Ms Cheng is all in. ■**
台灣新任反對黨領袖欲與習近平對話
鄭麗文接受《經濟學人》訪問時表示，希望能於今年初會晤中國國家主席
2026年1月29日 | 台北
對台灣反對黨領袖鄭麗文而言，「風險」似乎是與生俱來的本能。她的職業生涯始於 1990 年代的學生運動，當時她追求台灣獨立並強烈抨擊當時的執政黨——國民黨（KMT）。隨後，她加入國民黨的舉動震驚了昔日戰友。如今，作為該黨的新任領導人，她正進行一場人生中最大的豪賭。在中國不斷加強對台軍事演習之際，她正阻撓增加國防開支的計畫；她認為台灣人民應該接受自己是中國人，並希望透過與中國領導人習近平尋求和解，帶領國民黨重返執政。
「我任期內最重要的任務就是推進台海和平，」她在 1月27日接受《經濟學人》專訪時表示。為此，她透露國民黨將在 2月初恢復中斷九年的國共對話，首波將從智庫交流開始。她表示，希望在 2026年上半年訪問中國並會晤習近平（習近平在去年 10月她當選黨主席後曾致電賀電，表達共同推動統一的期望）。她說：「我們必須停止刻意醜化與中國相關的一切。」
這是一項充滿爭議的策略，即使在國民黨內部亦然。國民黨已連續三屆總統大選敗給主張台灣是主權獨立國家的民進黨（DPP）。民意調查顯示，大多數台灣民眾不信任中國政府，對統一興趣缺缺，且認同自己是台灣人而非中國人。鄭麗文的政綱也讓美國感到不安；美國雖致力於協助台灣自我防衛，但堅持台灣必須大幅增加軍事支出。美國官員相信，習近平已下令要求解放軍具備在 2027年前奪取台灣的能力。
然而，現年 56歲的鄭麗文相信，她能幫助化解攻擊，並在 2028年下屆總統大選前贏回選民支持。她坦言自己的國家認同觀點與主流民意脫節，但她將此歸咎於民進黨推行「去中國化」的結果。此外，她認為國家認同不會是未來幾年的核心政治議題。她強調：「更重要的是兩岸關係，這才是真正決定民眾投票取向的關鍵。」
她的論點觸及了民間兩大恐懼。首先，若民進黨在 2028年再次勝選，中國領導層可能會對和平統一失去希望。她表示：「一旦中方對台灣不再抱有期待，解決台灣問題的方式將會是我們所有人都不願見到的。」另一個恐懼則是美國對台支持正在動搖。她舉例，美國總統川普要求台灣將國防開支提高至 GDP 的 10%，並要求將全球領先的半導體產業 40% 移至美國。她說：「對許多台灣人來說，這些訊息拼湊起來讓他們感到美國正準備遺棄台灣。」
批評者認為這種說法是危言聳聽。儘管中國已具備強大的侵略或封鎖能力，但在不承受巨大損失及摧毀全球經濟的情況下，中國能否成功仍是未知數。且習近平近期才剛清洗了軍方高層。民進黨領袖指責鄭麗文附和中國宣傳，並透過阻撓國防預算危害台灣安全。台灣總統賴清德已承諾在 2030年前將軍事支出提高至 GDP 的 5%，今年更提出 400億美元的國防追加預算，主要用於採購美製武器。然而，這兩項計畫目前在國民黨及其盟友佔多數的國會中遭到攔阻。
在鄭麗文看來，賴清德應為未提供軍費細節負起責任。她認為提議的金額將「擠壓到其他所有需求」。她拒絕具體說明台灣應投入多少國防預算，但表示台灣的火力永遠無法與中國匹敵。相對地，她主張台灣的安全應透過「合理」的軍費支出結合與習近平的談判來實現。她批評賴清德拒絕接受 1992年國民黨執政時達成的共識（即「九二共識」），該共識規定海峽兩岸同屬「一個中國」，但允許各自表述。由於民進黨認為該公式缺乏法律效力且是陷阱而拒絕接受，中國自 2016年民進黨上台後便中斷了官方對話。鄭麗文表示，現在擁護九二共識「將顯著降低軍事對抗的可能性」。
至於談判的預期結果，鄭麗文用詞謹慎。她表示，會晤習近平的主要目標是獲得一項明確的公開承諾，即雙方應致力於維持和平，並承認戰爭將帶來「難以想像的災難性後果」。習近平值得信任嗎？她說，為了避免損害國際形象，中國必須「言而有信」，「誠信至關重要」。
至於長遠目標是否為「和平統一」（如某位國民黨前總統所言），她不願定論。她表示，在她的四年任期內，若能建立維持和平的框架已是大功一件。她補充道：「至於現狀此後是否會改變，我只希望這是在兩岸人民都能接受的情況下發生。」
考慮到她的背景，這番求和言論更顯得引人注目。她的父親是 1949年隨軍來台的國民黨老兵，但她曾是投身民進黨的學運人士。2002年，她因不滿黨內腐敗與不容異己而離開。三年後加入國民黨，她很快以辭鋒犀利的政治評論員聞名。但直到近期，她才更公開地表達自己的中國認同感。
目前尚不清楚她是否會成為國民黨 2028年的總統候選人，她表示正專注於當前職務。但身為黨主席，她將主導今年 11月地方選舉及未來大選的政綱。她已經在撼動台灣政局，其方式可能徹底改變台、中、美之間脆弱的平衡關係。這場賭局的代價前所未有地高，而鄭麗文已傾力孤注一擲。
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