Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party is pushing for peace with mainland China and it holds out the possibility of a peace pact, the party's chairwoman told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday, the party said.

 

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party and China's president, met a delegation led by KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-Chu at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the Xinhua news agency reported.

 

Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary, although the island, which relies on the United States for arms sales, has ruled itself as a rival to China since the end of a Chinese civil war in 1949.

 

Hung, once a presidential candidate, said the KMT would play an active role in pushing for the "institutionalistion" of peaceful relations between the two sides and for the possibility of a peace agreement, the KMT said in a statement released in Taiwan.

 

Relations between the mainland and Taiwan have deteriorated since the island's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took power in May after winning an election.

 

Beijing cut an official communication mechanism with Taiwan in June after President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP refused to commit to the "One China" principle that Taiwan is part of China.

 

The KMT, for decades a bitter rival of Beijing, has in recent years been seen as more pragmatic about ties based on economic cooperation.

Communist forces defeated the KMT in the civil war and KMT forces fled to the island.