KMT China Visit Itinerary Released: Shanghai → Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (Apr 8) → Beijing; Xi Meeting Confirmed

With 4 days before KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun's departure, the full itinerary of her April 7-12 China visit was confirmed: the delegation will travel Shanghai → Nanjing (Jiangsu Province) → Shanghai → Beijing. The most symbolically charged stop is the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, scheduled for April 8 — a site Beijing uses to position KMT as custodians of a shared Chinese national heritage within a unification narrative. Cheng will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Beijing's selection of the Sun Yat-sen mausoleum is calculated: the KMT was founded by Sun Yat-sen, and China frames the mausoleum visit as KMT honoring its 'Chinese roots' — a symbolism incompatible with Taiwan independence and useful for presenting cross-strait relations as naturally trending toward unification. Taiwan national security officials reiterated concern that the visit is designed to create an 'illusion of unification momentum' for Trump ahead of the May 14-15 summit. DPP legislators called on KMT members not to 'carry out Beijing's agenda' during ongoing defense budget negotiations, where the KMT caucus has proposed NT$380B against the DPP's NT$1.25T bill.