China to resume Taiwan flights and aquaculture imports after KMT visit

Beijing moved to reopen direct flights and aquaculture imports from Taiwan after Kuomintang chair Cheng Li-wun finished a six-day visit, turning commerce into a fresh signal to the island’s opposition and voters. The package, announced after Cheng met Xi Jinping in Beijing, was framed as outreach, but it also sharpened Beijing’s ability to reward political contacts while keeping pressure on Taipei.

China’s Taiwan Work Office said it would explore a long-term communication mechanism with the Kuomintang, resume flights between Taiwan and mainland cities such as Xi’an and Urumqi, and facilitate imports of Taiwanese aquaculture goods that Beijing had previously banned. It also said it would work toward a bridge linking the Chinese coast with Taiwan’s offshore islands of Matsu and Kinmen, reviving an idea Beijing has floated before. The mechanics remained unclear, and any flight resumption would still depend on approval from Taipei.

Xi and Cheng met on April 10 in the Great Hall of the People, where Xi said the encounter after 10 years was significant and repeated Beijing’s insistence on the 1992 Consensus and opposition to Taiwan independence. Xi also said Taiwan agricultural and fishery products were welcome in the mainland market. Cheng’s trip ran from April 7 to April 12 and took her through Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing; before leaving, she called it a “journey for peace” and said she wanted to show that the desire for peace was not coming from Taiwan alone.

The timing carried its own message. Taiwan’s opposition-dominated legislature had stalled a government plan for $40 billion in extra defense spending, even as China increased military pressure around the island. Chinese warplanes were spotted while Xi was meeting Cheng, underscoring how Beijing paired selective economic openings with coercive force. The visit also came about a month before a planned summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing, placing Taiwan squarely in the background of broader U.S.-China diplomacy.

Taipei’s Mainland Affairs Council condemned the moves as political transactions carried out around the elected government and said cross-strait public affairs should be negotiated by both governments on an equal and dignified basis. In March, the council had already warned that the Chinese Communist Party was intensifying united-front infiltration and election interference. That makes the new flights and trade concessions more than practical measures: they are leverage, aimed at shaping Taiwan’s internal politics while leaving the island to absorb the risks.