Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is visiting China to help build social and cultural ties, a trip that could include a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping despite rising tensions.

Ma left Taipei on Monday with a student group on an 11-day trip that highlighted continued interactions in education, business and culture despite Beijing’s threats to use force against the self-governing island democracy to reunify.

At the end of his second term in 2015, Jack Ma and Xi Jinping held a historic meeting in Singapore, and the two sides had close exchanges. The meeting, the first between the leaders of China and Taiwan in more than half a century, produced little substantive results, with Ma Ying-jeou’s Kuomintang losing the next presidential election to pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party Tsai Tsai. English.

Lai Ching-te, the current vice president who is scorned by Beijing for his opposition to unification, was elected in January as Tsai Ing-wen’s successor, even though the KMT restored a slim majority in the legislature.

Ma Ying-jeou’s itinerary includes a visit to Beijing, where there is speculation that he may meet with Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping said he remains open to Taiwanese politicians who claim that the island and the mainland, which were divided during a 1949 civil war, belong to the same Chinese people. nation.

Taiwan’s official Central News Agency quoted Hsiao Xu-cen, head of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, as saying he hoped Ma would have the opportunity to meet “old friends,” but did not disclose details.

Taiwanese largely oppose political unification with China, and the island is strengthening military ties with allies such as the United States and Japan while maintaining close economic ties with the mainland.