BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping told former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday that outside inference could not stop the "family reunion" between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and that there are no issues that cannot be discussed.

Since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists, no serving Taiwanese leader has visited China.

Ma, president from 2008 to 2016, last year became the first former Taiwanese leader to visit China, and is now on his second trip to the country.

Ma had been widely expected to meet Xi this time around, having first met Xi in Singapore in late 2015 for a landmark summit shortly before the current Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, won election.

Meeting Ma in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, where foreign leaders normally hold talks with top Chinese officials, Xi said that people on both sides of the strait are Chinese.

"External interference cannot stop the historical trend of reunion of the country and family," Xi said, in comments reported by Taiwanese media.

Xi did not elaborate but in Chinese terminology referring to external interference over Taiwan is generally aimed at the support Taipei gets from Western countries like the United States, especially arms sales which infuriate Beijing.

People on both sides of the strait are Chinese, Xi said.

"There is no rancour that cannot be resolved, no problem that cannot be discussed, and no force that can separate us.."

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

Xi called Ma "Mr Ma Ying-jeou" rather than former president, given neither the Chinese nor Taiwanese governments formally recognise the other.

China considers democratically-governed Taiwan its own territory, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert those claims.

Tsai and her government reject China's territorial claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future.

China says it will only talk to Tsai if she accepts that both sides of the strait are part of "one China", which she has refused to do.

Ma remains a senior member of Taiwan's main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), which in January lost the presidential election for the third time in a row, but has no official party position.

The KMT advocates close ties with China and dialogue, but strongly denies being pro-Beijing.

 - Reuters