AFP, Shanghai

Taiwan’s main opposition leader landed in China yesterday for a rare visit aimed at building cross-strait “peace”, as the Taipei government warned Beijing would seek to stop US arms sales to the democratic island.

Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman Cheng Li-wun, who is the party’s first leader to visit China in a decade, has insisted on meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping before she visits the United States -- Taiwan’s main security backer.

The KMT supports closer relations with China, which claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize it.

But Cheng, whose unexpected rise to the top of the KMT drew a congratulatory message from Xi in October, has been accused by critics, including inside the party, of being too pro-China.

The KMT leader landed at a Shanghai airport yesterday, where she was presented with a bouquet of flowers before being driven away in a convoy, live video from Taiwanese media showed.

Cheng then travelled to the eastern city of Nanjing, where Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said she thanked Xi and China for the warm reception.

She is expected to visit the memorial of Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen in the city today.

Cheng will be in China for six days, also visiting Beijing, where she hopes to meet Xi.

China severed high-level contact with Taiwan that year after Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency and rejected Beijing’s claims to the island. Cross-strait relations have worsened since then, with China ramping up military pressure with near daily deployments of fighter jets and warships near Taiwan and regular large-scale military drills.