Beijing wants Xi-Cheng meeting to send an important message

A decade after his last meeting with the top Kuomintang (KMT) leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down with the head of Taiwan’s main opposition party last week. Both sides clearly hoped the encounter would produce political gains. But while the meeting was symbolically important, its practical effect is likely to be much more limited. The meeting allowed Beijing to send an important message to the global community: whatever its differences with Taipei, it is still the party seeking peace rather than escalation. That image matters even more as China seeks to distinguish itself from a United States that is…