{"id":44495,"date":"2026-04-08T05:55:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=44495"},"modified":"2026-04-08T05:55:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:55:39","slug":"taiwan-opposition-leader-pledges-reconciliation-at-memorial-for-founding-father-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=44495","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan opposition leader pledges reconciliation at memorial for founding father in China"},"content":{"rendered":"


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NANJING: Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun pledged on Wednesday (Apr 8) to channel the spirit of her party’s founder Sun Yat-sen and seek reconciliation with China, offering praise at his tomb for the country’s achievements following the communist revolution.<\/p>\n

Cheng, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s largest opposition party, is in China<\/a> at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory, and as the opposition-dominated parliament stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defence spending.<\/p>\n

In a moment filled with symbolism on her first full day in the country, Cheng laid a wreath at Sun’s mausoleum in the eastern city of Nanjing, also the capital of the KMT-led Republic of China government before it fled to Taiwan in 1949, having lost a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.<\/p>\n

“The core values of Sun Yat-sen’s ideal that ‘all under heaven are equal’ have always been equality, inclusiveness, and unity,” Cheng said, in footage carried live on Taiwanese television channels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We should work together to promote reconciliation and unity across the (Taiwan) Strait and create regional prosperity and peace.”<\/p>\n

FOUNDER OF THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA<\/h2>\n

Sun, who overthrew the last imperial dynasty and founded the Republic of China in 1912, died of cancer in 1925.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is still officially venerated in Taiwan as the founder of the Republic of China, but also in China by the Communist Party as a Chinese national hero. Mao declared him the “great revolutionary forerunner”.<\/p>\n

Cheng said the KMT had eventually honoured Sun’s founding principles and made Taiwan into a free and democratic society, though she also mentioned the “white terror” of the 38 years of martial law the island lived under until 1987.<\/p>\n

“Likewise, on the mainland, we have also seen and witnessed progress and development that exceeded everyone’s expectations and imagination,” she added.<\/p>\n

While Taiwan is a multi-party democracy, China’s communist party brooks no dissent to its rule.<\/p>\n

Security was tight for her visit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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