China Defeats US Warmongers: Brilliant Diplomacy to End Civil War | Dr. Joanna Lei

## Introduction The recent meeting between the Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman and the Communist Party leader on the mainland marks more than a diplomatic photo-op: it represents a deliberate effort to rebuild channels of communication that have atrophied over the past decade. The exchange captured in the conversation with Dr. Joanna Lei highlights how party-to-party engagement can serve as an instrument to cool tensions, restore practical ties, and open pragmatic pathways for peace without solving the constitutional knot that underlies cross-strait relations. At a time when alarmist scenarios about military confrontation circulate widely, the reactivation of political and social links — even from the opposition side in Taipei — is best read as strategic diplomacy aimed at preventing escalation and protecting everyday livelihoods. ## Xi and KMT breakthrough The meeting itself is historically resonant. Dr. Joanna Lei frames it as akin to past pivotal encounters: the 2005 Lien Chan visit to the mainland that opened formal party-to-party dialogue, and the 2015–16 interactions that set the stage for broader exchanges during the Ma Ying-jeou period. What is striking today is that this breakthrough comes from an opposition leader, not the sitting president, and yet it has produced concrete ripples on both sides. Beijing’s willingness to receive the KMT chairwoman signals a confidence that party channels can be used to maintain stability, to reward political actors who rhetorically align with Beijing’s minimum political requirements, and to institutionalize communication even when formal state-to-state relations are frozen. For Taiwan, the achievement is both symbolic and practical: a restoration of a route for negotiation that can bypass frozen government-to-government lines. ## Party channel and guardrails One of the most important insights from the discussion is the layered nature of cross-strait exchanges: civilian think tanks, foundations sanctioned by governments, party-to-party links, and formal government channels. Dr. Lei recounts this evolution as a series of “rails” — from unofficial academic ties (a third rail), to foundation-based exchanges (second rail), to party-to-party forums (2.5 rail), and finally to direct administrative negotiations (first rail) during periods of thaw. The intervening years of mistrust and policy divergence have effectively starved many of these rails, leaving dangerous gaps in communication. Reestablishing a party channel therefore operates as a guardrail: it is not a resolution of sovereignty or status, but it creates routine, predictable interaction that limits misperception and unintended escalation. For conflict prevention, these guardrails matter more than grand rhetoric; they create habits of talk where abrasive silence once prevailed. ## Beijing’s 10 measures Concretely, Beijing followed the visit with a set of ten proposed measures aimed at easing travel, trade, and local cooperation. These offers included resuming direct flight routes, facilitating visas and travel between particular mainland provinces and Taiwan, reopening agricultural and aquaculture markets, and even proposals for infrastructure and utility linkages in outlying islands such as Kinmen. Dr. Lei emphasizes that these are not mere gestures: they require administrative coordination and, if accepted, will produce tangible economic and social benefits for ordinary Taiwanese — from tourism recovery to renewed market access for farmers and fishers. Importantly, Beijing framed the offers as conditional on a political baseline: acceptance presupposes adherence to principles that reject formal independence and endorse the 1992 Consensus as a conceptual foundation. That linkage converts goodwill into a negotiated opportunity rather than an unconditional handout. ## KMT platform and local elections The KMT has explicitly tied its platform to those political foundations: acceptance of the 1992 Consensus and opposition to Taiwan independence. That stance offers clarity for voters but also presents a tactical dilemma for candidates contesting local offices in 2026. Local campaigns traditionally focus on bread-and-butter municipal concerns — schools, healthcare, infrastructure — and candidates worry that a highly ideological national framing could mobilize opponents and alienate swing voters. Yet the party’s success at the municipal level in recent cycles shows deep reservoirs of support in many regions. The challenge for the KMT leadership is to balance a national strategic posture that secures dialogue with the mainland against the practical electoral calculus of municipal campaigning. If party discipline holds, the platform offers a consistent message for 2028; if it fractures, local contests could become a test of how far voters prize stability and economic return over symbolic sovereignty disputes. ## DPP reaction and US pressure Responses from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and external actors complicate the picture. Within Taiwan, the most vocal critics frame Beijing’s measures as “sugar-coated” tactics intended to divide Taiwanese society and co-opt political actors. Dr. Lei notes that many sympathetic voices in the DPP remain muted publicly; day-to-day collegial ties across party lines are real, but the political incentives for visible praise of cross-strait rapprochement are weak. Internationally, Washington’s posture looms large. The conversation underscores the asymmetric pressure Taiwan faces: public U.S. support for Taipei’s security is sometimes coupled with narratives that cast rapprochement as dangerous appeasement. That creates a squeeze on Taiwanese actors who seek to engage Beijing while maintaining security guarantees with the United States. The result is a geopolitical triangle in which local actors must navigate domestic electoral politics, Beijing’s conditional incentives, and American strategic signaling — three vectors that do not always align. ## Peace models and pilot programs A recurring theme in Dr. Lei’s analysis is pragmatism: rather than grand treaties that attempt to resolve sovereignty, pilot programs can generate incremental mutual gains and build trust. The 2005 precedent shows how reopening travel and economic links yielded measurable benefits that softened political fault lines. The current offers from Beijing can similarly be deployed as small-scale confidence-building measures: resuming flights, reactivating market access, enabling student and academic exchange, and practical cooperation on utilities and public goods in border-adjacent island communities. These pilot programs serve three functions. First, they improve livelihoods, which creates constituencies for peace. Second, they normalize administrative interaction, producing routines that reduce the risk of miscalculation. Third, they provide politically deniable pathways for engagement: parties and local governments can experiment without requiring national-level constitutional concessions. In conflict management terms, these are the kinds of “stabilizing mechanics” that often prevent crises. ## Taiwan reaction and closing Public reaction across Taiwan will be heterogeneous. Many citizens who travel, trade, and work across the Strait will appreciate the relief of resumed flights and market openings. Others, particularly those shaped by identity politics or wary of Beijing’s long-term objectives, will remain skeptical and may amplify alarmist narratives. The political contest between KMT and DPP will therefore be fought on how to weigh immediate economic relief against deeper strategic concerns. What the conversation with Dr. Joanna Lei makes clear is that reestablishing party-to-party dialogue is not about capitulation; it is about creating institutional buffers that make war less likely and politics more manageable. In an era when global attention fixates on catastrophic scenarios, restoring routine, practical links is a quieter but perhaps

China's Brilliant Diplomacy to End Civil War | Dr. Joanna Lei While the US is busy fighting illegal wars of aggression around the globe, Taiwan is quietly mending ties with China to avoid being "Ukrainized" by the lunatic warmongers in Washington. The recent meeting between Taiwan's opposition party leader, the KMT Chair Woman, Cheng Li-wun, and Xi Jinping. To put this into proper perspective, I speak with Dr. Joanna Lei, a Taiwanese businesswoman, media executive, and former KMT lawmaker. Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:32 Xi and KMT breakthrough 00:07:42 Party channel and guardrails 00:13:34 Beijing’s 10 measures 00:17:54 KMT platform and local elections 00:21:03 DPP reaction and US pressure 00:30:06 2027 fears and war risk 00:34:53 Peace models and pilot programs 00:47:02 Taiwan reaction and closing #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and I'm joined today again by Dr. Joanna Lei, a Taiwanese businesswoman, media executive, and former lawmaker for the KMT party. Joanna, welcome back. #Joana Lei Thank you, Pascal. Thank you for having me, and thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk to your audience. #Pascal Yeah, and well, thank you for taking the time. It's quite late in the evening, but you're still doing this. And, you know, this is one of the moments when I'm actually happy to have such a discussion because we saw very good news last week. Let me just show it here for a second in my browser that, you know, the chairwoman of the Kuomintang, the KMT party of Taiwan, which is currently in the opposition but used to be the leading party of the island, of course. She met last week with Xi Jinping. So her name is Cheng Li-wen, if I got that right. And she is not the president of Taiwan, nothing. She is just the leader of the opposition party. But she's, of course, the person who, if the KMT wins the elections in 2028, would stand to maybe become the next president of the Republic of China, which is the name of the government of Taiwan. So, to my knowledge, this is only the third time that a KMT leader has met with a leader of -- 1 of 16 -- the Communist Party of China — the first time having been during the war, actually, between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, then the second time between Mr. Xi and the former leader of your party, Ma Ying-jeou, and now the third time with her out of power. Can you maybe talk to us about how this came about? It came to me as quite a big surprise — how to interpret this and how you see this as the direction of Taiwan and China going forward. #Joana Lei Let me make a couple of small corrections. The Civil War was the thing that determined the cross- strait situation. Of course, you know very well that's 1949. After that, the first real meeting between the KMT leader and CCP leader was in 2005 between Lien Chan and Hu Jintao. So Hu Jintao met with Lien Chan in 2005. During that time, the KMT was also the opposition party, not the ruling party. So when Lien Chan went in 2005, it actually opened the door for direct party-to-party discussion, dialogue, and negotiation for the ensuing years of the Ma Ying-jeou era. The second major meeting was in 2016, right before Ma Ying-jeou left office. And that was the second time between Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping — that was in Singapore. That's president to president and not just party chairman to party chairman. The third time and fourth time are the other chairmen, for example, Hung Hsiu-chu, and so on and so forth. But the most important one following 2016 is certainly this one, this year. The other one is 2015, because our election is at the beginning of 2016. So this year, this time, is Cheng Li-wen winning her chairmanship of the KMT, running on the platform that we should have a renewed relationship between the KMT and Mainland China. In other words, when the DPP kept accusing the KMT of not being loyal to Taiwan, quote unquote, Cheng Li-wen didn't shy away from that issue. Cheng Li-wen actually ran on the platform that we should regain our momentum with the discussion between the KMT and CCP. And she ran on that platform and won the chairmanship of the KMT. So it's very important that this time she regenerated core supporters around her before she even took office. But after she took office, she has managed to bring all the different factions together to have a strong coalition. She has asked for a visit to Mainland China and a visit to the United States. And in her many, many, many statements, she said, I should go to Mainland China first before I go to the United States. So now it seems that she will be in the United States in June. So you can see that a lot of things have happened since she took office. This is the first major meeting since Lien Chan's 2005 meeting. And the coincidence is that both times, the KMT was not the ruling party. It was the opposition party, but with significant seats, quite a strong showing in the Legislative Yuan. So after the 2005 meeting, when I was part of the delegation and I was also at the time serving in the Legislative Yuan, we were able to open up direct flights and visitor visas from Mainland China to Taiwan. So even before Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008, we were able to formally open communication and -- 2 of 16 -- free travel between people on the two sides of the Strait. And that, I think, is something worth noting because some people are saying, oh, you know, she's just the opposition leader, she's not the president, she can't do much. But we weren't the ruling party at that time. We were able to open direct flights by changing something we had in terms of the Cross-Strait Relations Act. And we actually changed how the airplanes could be approved to go across the Taiwan Strait with direct flights, not going through a third area such as Hong Kong or Japan. And that's really, really significant because it was the same situation — Taiwan was not in a good economic situation. So with the direct flights and visitor visas, lots of people came to Taiwan. At the height, over 10 million people traveled across the Taiwan Strait — over 4 million from mainland China to Taiwan, travelers and tourists, and over 5 million from Taiwan to mainland China. So you can see that was the spring of cross-strait relations. Now we are also in a similar situation. While TSMC is doing really, really well, our stock market is soaring, but everyday people who are not in the tech sector, not in the AI world, are suffering because we don't have a lot of business locally. With Zheng Liwen going to mainland China and mainland China announcing 10 different measures to help the local economy right after her return from Beijing, it's yet again showing very strong support from mainland China to the local Taiwanese, just as in 2005. So it's really, really significant. And we are very happy that a new channel of communication is established, some kind of guardrail is being put in place so that we're not always traveling down the war and confrontation route. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this can happen anytime again. So please consider subscribing not only here, but to my mailing list on Substack. That's pascallottaz.substack.com. The link's going to be in the description below. And now, back to the video. Yeah, I mean, the KMT is basically running a second diplomatic channel with the mainland, aren't they? That is separate from what the DPP government is doing. And we've seen that before. I mean, Ma Ying-jeou, although he's out of office, he was traveling also to the mainland over the last couple of years. He was mainly then meeting local provincial government officials and so on, especially right across the strait. But is this... how should we interpret this? Is this a form of, well, again, second-channel diplomacy? And, you know, it is very surprising to me that she managed to meet Xi Jinping. I mean, he's the president of China, and he said yes to a meeting with her — the chairwoman of the opposition party, I mean, nobody who's in power. So this is also like he's exposing himself quite a bit, also showing that China obviously has a, let's say, a preferred party that it would like to work with. What do you think this tells us about the Chinese side, the mainland China side, of how they are now approaching Taiwan? #Joana Lei -- 3 of 16 -- Well, I think it's really, really clear that since 2016, all the agreements signed between the Ma Ying- jeou administration and mainland China — the 23 agreements — almost all ceased to operate or have gone into hiatus. So with the really cold shoulders across the Taiwan Strait and almost no communication between the official channels of communication, it is now in a very dangerous situation because we are now in the Western narrative that Taiwan is really dangerous. And you probably remember on the front page, they said it's the most dangerous place in the world. And they kept saying that before 2027, mainland China will take Taiwan militarily. And they also said we should arm ourselves like a porcupine or we'll have the Taiwan Strait on fire, meaning that you will have a lot of mines and it will be a sea of fire. So all of this is the backdrop of why this happened and why it is so important. Because during 2005, it was the first time the DPP took the office of the presidency. And that was also the time that Chen Shui-bian started taking away from our old guardrails and started really promoting Taiwan independence. So it is also at that kind of really critical juncture, Lien Chan took us to mainland China when we established not a back channel — it's a formal party-to-party forum. Two different fora were agreed on. One was executed. So if you use the traditional sense, we had in the past the third rail, which is think tank academics. And we had the second rail, which is the government- designated areas and staff, which are the foundations across the Taiwan Strait. And that's the second rail. At the time when Lien Chan went in 2005, we established a 2.5 rail — that is, party to party. And that gradually eased into, during the Ma Ying-jeou era, the first rail — that is, government, administration, agency to agency. So we have gone through a progression from a third rail, civilian societies, to the second rail, which is government-designated foundations, to the 2.5 — that's party to party — and then gradually became the first rail, the first track of direct negotiation. So it is important to remember that history because the direct negotiation resulted in 23 agreements, including the most important economic framework agreement. Everybody terms it as ECFA. You probably remember, ECFA is the most important framework agreement across the Taiwan Strait. It gave Taiwanese businessmen a lot of opportunities in mainland China. So this is the time when you have no third rail, because the DPP doesn't now give entry visas to mainland Chinese scholars. And in fact, and I say it responsibly, they do not encourage people who teach in major universities to even visit mainland China for think tanks or forums. So the third rail is pretty dead. And the second rail, ARATS and SEF, the two foundations, are in no communication. So we, of course, the first rail, government to government, is non-existent. So we're in a very dangerous situation when the world doesn't think that we're going to go into war, but the old communication channels and old dialogue, old goodwill, are all diminishing. So Zheng Liwen's visit this time, I think, is just as important as the 2005 one, maybe even slightly more significant than Ma Ying-jeou's recent travels to mainland China to reopen