TAIPEI (TVBS News) — When Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meets with American lawmakers next month, she'll be pitching a vision of cross-strait peace that Taiwan's ruling party calls indistinguishable from Beijing's own. Cheng departs Monday (June 1) for a two-week U.S. trip — her first to Washington since meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) in April — that has already sparked accusations of government sabotage, denials of interference, and a preview of the messaging war that will define Taiwan's elections this fall.
Here is what to know.
What is the itinerary? What is the purpose of the trip?
Cheng will travel to San Francisco first, then to Boston, New York and Washington, before returning to Los Angeles ahead of her flight back to Taiwan. The centerpiece is her Washington visit, scheduled for June 8-12, where she plans to meet with members of Congress, administration officials and think tank scholars — though details of which specific officials have confirmed meetings were not immediately available.
Cheng has said she wants to discuss how to achieve long-term peace across the Taiwan Strait and what role the United States can play. "We want our American friends to know that we will not be troublemakers, we will not drag the U.S. down, and we will not harm the U.S.," she said Wednesday (May 27) at the KMT headquarters.
She has proposed transforming the "first island chain" (第一島鏈) — a Cold War-era strategic concept referring to the arc of islands from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines — into what she calls a "peace and prosperity chain," framing the concept as a way to insulate cross-strait stability from Taiwan's domestic political cycles.
What is the political context? What do critics say?
The trip comes about six weeks after the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing and roughly two months after Cheng's April meeting with Xi. A KMT source said the summit's outcome — which both Washington and Beijing characterized as aimed at avoiding conflict — aligned with Cheng's approach and gave her added confidence.
Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), executive director of the KMT-affiliated think tank, said maintaining Taiwan Strait stability is the "greatest common denominator" among international stakeholders. He argued that the Democratic Progressive Party's strategy of rallying international support against Beijing is "outdated" and no longer aligns with U.S. interests.
DPP lawmakers have sharply criticized Cheng's approach. Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said Cheng's messaging "is identical to Beijing's narrative framework," arguing that her "peace and prosperity chain" concept would dilute Taiwan's strategic importance as a key link in the democratic alliance containing authoritarian expansion — and signal to Washington that U.S.-Taiwan military cooperation is unnecessary.
What is the dispute over government interference?
The visit has also become entangled in a dispute over alleged sabotage. On Wednesday, Cheng accused Taiwan's Overseas Community Affairs Council (僑委會), or OCAC, of urging overseas Taiwanese to boycott her events and discouraging them from helping arrange meetings with U.S. officials.
"If it weren't for the DPP giving the order, if it weren't for [OCAC Minister] Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) giving the order, would they be doing these things?" Cheng told a popular YouTuber. She also alleged that the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (台灣人公共事務會), or FAPA, a U.S.-based pro-Taiwan independence advocacy group, has been lobbying Congress not to meet with her.
The OCAC denied the allegations, calling them "baseless rumors" made "without any evidence." DPP spokesperson Justin Wu (吳崢) defended FAPA, saying the organization has "long been seriously lobbying to strengthen U.S.-Taiwan relations" regardless of which party governs Taiwan, and accused Cheng of "smearing" overseas Taiwanese who support the island.
The visit comes as Taiwan's major parties gear up for local elections later this year, and both appear to be framing the trip to appeal to voters back home as much as to policymakers in Washington. Whether Cheng's "peace normalization" pitch gains traction with American officials may matter less, politically, than whether it resonates with Taiwanese voters increasingly anxious about cross-strait tensions — and increasingly skeptical of both parties' solutions. ◼