Former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou has set the tone for his historic 12-day journey to China by calling for extra peaceable relations between Taipei and Beijing and mentioning the frequent ancestry of their individuals.

“We’re all Chinese language,” Ma proclaimed on Tuesday in Nanjing, the place he spoke in entrance of the Solar But-sen mausoleum. “Individuals on each side of the Taiwan strait are Chinese language individuals and are each descendants of the Yan and Yellow emperors,” he added.

Ma grew to become the primary present or former Taiwanese head of presidency to go to the mainland when his aircraft arrived on Monday afternoon in Shanghai. He’s making the journey amid heightened tensions with China, which ramped up navy drills within the Taiwan Strait final yr and has vowed to reunify with the island, by power if crucial.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Occasion (DPP) has criticized Ma’s China journey – noting that it comes simply days after China wrestled away the Honduras, one of many self-ruled island’s few allies – and has accused his Kuomintang (KMT) opposition get together of standing with “the Chinese language communists.” Ma stays a senior chief of the KMT after being succeeded as president by the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.

The 73-year-old Ma, who’s joined on his six-city journey by former aides and a bunch of faculty college students, has no plans for conferences with Chinese language authorities officers. “I hope to enhance the cross-strait ambiance by the enthusiastic interactions of younger individuals, so peace can come to us sooner and sooner,” he advised reporters earlier than departing from Taiwan on Monday.

Ma is touring round China as Tsai prepares to depart on Wednesday for her go to to the US, the place she’s anticipated to satisfy with Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered Beijing by visiting Taipei final August, defying warnings from Chinese language officers that the journey would encourage Taiwanese separatists and undermine China’s sovereignty over the island. China responded by slicing off navy and local weather ties with Washington.

Ma additionally made historical past in 2015, when he met with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in Singapore, marking the primary such summit since former Taiwanese chief Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist authorities fled to the island in 1949. “We sincerely hope that the 2 sides will work collectively to pursue peace, keep away from conflict, and attempt to revitalize China,” he stated on Tuesday. “That is an unavoidable accountability of Chinese language individuals on each side of the Strait, and we should work arduous.”

The previous president’s reconciliatory feedback got here on the identical day that Czech lawmaker Marketa Pekarova Adamova made a Pelosi-like go to to Taipei. “Expensive lawmaker colleagues and expensive individuals of Taiwan, I assure you we’re with you now,” she stated in a speech to Taiwanese legislators. “We are going to proceed to be with you below any circumstances. We’re in the identical boat collectively.” She added that if Chinese language forces assault Taiwan, “they may fail.”