Wang Huning, the Communist Party’s fourth ranked leader, told Andrew Hsia, Taiwan’s opposition KMT’s deputy chairman, during a meeting in Beijing that both parties should maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese state television reported.

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own and has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure to get the island to accept Chinese sovereignty.

Taiwan’s government says only Taiwan people can decide their future.

There was no immediate comment from the KMT on Hsia’s meeting.

Wang is one of just two top officials reappointed to join President Xi Jinping on the elite seven-man Politburo Standing Committee at a party congress last year, and is the party’s top theoretician.

In Xi’s third leadership term, Wang is on track to be in charge of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference when a government reshuffle takes place next month, an advisory body which has an important role in working with – and co-opting – non-communists, as well as people from Taiwan.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has seized on Hsia’s China trip to attack the KMT for being too close to Beijing and wanting to sell out Taiwan, and has criticised Hsia for going to “pay court to the communists”.

The KMT traditionally favours close ties with China, but strongly denies being pro-Beijing.

China has not spoken with Taiwan president Tsai Ing Wen’s administration since she took office in 2016, believing she is a separatist, and has rebuffed frequent calls from Tsai for dialogue to resume.