In an exclusive telephone interview with Storm Media, Lee Tai-chuang (李大壯) — chairman of the China New Era Think Tank Foundation, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member representing Taiwanese compatriots, and grandnephew of Zhang Xueliang (張學良) — warns that the Communist Party will not carry the Kuomintang's political water, and that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is walking into a test her party isn't ready to pass.
A Decade of Silence Breaks — But on Beijing's Terms
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun departed for mainland China on April 7, leading a delegation that will culminate in a meeting with CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping — the first leadership-level KMT-CCP contact in a decade. The moment carries undeniable historic weight. But in this exclusive telephone interview, Lee Tai-chuang offers a sobering read that cuts through the pageantry: the initiative belongs entirely to Beijing, the political risks belong entirely to Cheng, and the Chinese Communist Party has no intention of sharing either.
"The Communist Party will not foot the bill for the Kuomintang," Lee told Storm Media. The line was blunt. The analysis behind it was surgical.
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Diplomacy Or Disaster? The Political Gamble Of The KMT's China Trip
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Peace on Display — With Beijing Holding the Remote
Q: The invitation came from the CCP Central Committee and General Secretary Xi Jinping directly. What is Beijing trying to achieve through this visit?
According to Lee, the CCP's decision to invite Cheng carries a deliberate message: that Beijing remains committed to a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question, and that it controls the pace and terms of that resolution. The invitation, he noted pointedly, followed the KMT's repeated and emphatic requests — a detail the Taiwan Affairs Office was careful to publicize. The ceremonial warmth with which Cheng will be received, Lee warned, should not be mistaken for strategic generosity.
"At a time of great global uncertainty, Beijing wants to show that it still wants to maintain cross-strait peace — and that it holds the initiative," he said. The visit is a signal, precisely calibrated, sent as much to the international community as to Taiwan itself.
Since the CCP's Fourth Plenary Session in late 2025, Lee argued, Xi Jinping's leadership has quietly locked in its approach to Taiwan: cross-strait "integration" — a framework that is patient, confident, and fundamentally indifferent to Taiwan's electoral calendar. Cheng, he said, must carefully calculate what she hopes to achieve, what political costs she will face upon returning home, and what problems will remain stubbornly unresolved.
Q: Many are comparing this visit to Lien Chan's 2005 "journey of peace." Does this visit carry similar potential to transform cross-strait relations?
This Is Not 2005. China Is Not the Same Country.
Lee dismissed the analogy without hesitation.
"The contexts are fundamentally different," he said. The China that received Lien Chan was a rising power still cultivating goodwill abroad. The China, receiving Cheng Li-wun is the world's second-largest economy, fortified by over a decade of explosive growth since the Eighteenth Party Congress in 2012, and operating from an entirely different psychological register.
The clearest sign of that transformation, Lee argued, lies in a subtle but momentous shift in Beijing's language. Where it once declared that it placed its hopes in the Taiwanese people, it now says it places its hopes in itself. "That kind of statement," Lee told Storm Media, "only gets made from a position of confidence. It represents a significant change."
He did, however, identify one structural parallel to 2005 that works in Cheng's favor: a ruling DPP whose approval ratings have declined, and whose strategic posture of cross-strait isolation has begun to generate friction not just with Beijing, but with Washington. If Cheng returns with concrete deliverables — resumed mainland tourism, mainland students allowed to study in Taiwan — and the DPP moves to block them, Lee argued, the political liability shifts squarely onto the ruling party.
The Bill Comes Home — and the CCP Won't Split It
Q: You've warned that Cheng will face serious unresolved problems at home after the visit. Are you concerned the Xi-Cheng meeting could damage the KMT's prospects in the year-end local elections?
This is where Lee's assessment turns most pointed. Whatever Cheng brings back from Beijing, he said, she will have to sell it entirely on her own. Beijing will not help — and Beijing knows that any attempt to intervene in Taiwan's domestic politics would almost certainly backfire. （Related： Diplomacy Or Disaster? The Political Gamble Of The KMT's China Trip ｜ Latest ）
The arithmetic facing Cheng is unforgiving. Surveys consistently show that 70 to 80% of Taiwan's public supports maintaining the status quo. Any outcome that appears to push beyond that threshold risks triggering a backlash the KMT, in Lee's frank assessment, is currently ill-equipped to absorb. Cheng is relatively new to the chairmanship, with limited time in the party's core organizational structures and, potentially, shallower grassroots networks than the moment demands.
"When Chairwoman Cheng returns, will the Taiwanese public accept what she brings back?" Lee asked Storm Media rhetorically. "The Communist Party will certainly not help her sell it — that is entirely her burden."
His advice for Cheng, offered with the detached clarity of an outside observer, was striking in its modesty: "Not losing is winning. Don't demand too much — no single meeting can determine everything. If she returns without having created uncontrollable complications, that is already an excellent outcome."
Washington Hasn't Left the Room
Q: How do you read Washington's position? Does the United States benefit from tension in the Taiwan Strait? （Related： Diplomacy Or Disaster? The Political Gamble Of The KMT's China Trip ｜ Latest ）
On American intentions, Lee pushed back against two common misreadings — that Washington has lost its leverage over the strait, and that it might quietly acquiesce to a dramatic shift in the status quo.
Neither reflects reality, he argued. Xi Jinping's willingness to meet with Trump is itself evidence that American influence remains formidable. Even as the world's second-largest economy, China must consult with the United States when issues carry global consequences.
When the two leaders sit down together, Lee believes one area of tacit understanding will be paramount: keeping Taiwan from crossing Xi's red lines. "Xi is a leader who thinks intensely in terms of bottom lines," Lee told Storm Media. Should Taiwan attempt something as provocative as legislating a "two-states theory," Washington would intervene immediately — not out of sympathy for Beijing, but because destabilizing the strait serves no American strategic interest.
Taiwan, Lee observed plainly, is too valuable a piece on the American chessboard to be carelessly discarded. The "deep state" that American commentators often invoke is simply shorthand for the durable institutional interests that constrain any president's room for maneuver — including Trump's.
Peace Is the Baseline — Not a Blank Check
Q: Given that Beijing has invited Chairwoman Cheng and the U.S. has said there is no credible 2027 invasion timeline, can we be cautiously optimistic about cross-strait relations?
Lee had a pointed message for analysts and officials in Taipei: stop consuming noise. Reports of political instability in Beijing, he told Storm Media, are disinformation — frequently produced by YouTube commentators operating with their own financial and ideological agendas. The signals that matter, he insisted, come from the CCP's formal government communications.
Those communications are clear: peace is the prevailing framework, anchored by the Fourth Plenary Session's central themes. But Beijing has made no unconditional promise. Cross a red line, and the calculus changes entirely.
The Tide Cannot Be Stopped
As for the broader flow of cross-strait people-to-people exchange, Lee was categorical. "Taiwan is not a sealed island. You cannot stop this." The movement of people between the two sides, he said, is like the ocean — no seawall holds against a tsunami. The wiser course is to welcome mainland visitors, let them encounter Taiwan's strengths firsthand, and trust that Taiwan's profound roots in Chinese cultural heritage remain one of its most durable and distinctive advantages.
The DPP's strategic planners, Lee concluded, have designed their cross-strait posture with geopolitics in mind and ordinary livelihoods as an afterthought. In a society where the service sector dwarfs the celebrated electronics industry in terms of employment, that may prove to be the most consequential miscalculation of all. "When the people you lead cannot put food on the table," Lee told Storm Media, "they will not support you."
