It's a pretty interesting development.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, this is more weighted on the symbolic side than the actual ushering in of change across the Taiwan Strait.

It is an effort by Xi Jinping to reach across the strait and embrace a former Taiwanese leader who kind of shares the vision of, you know,

latching on to the common culture and the common identity of the greater Chinese nation.

And that's what Ma Ying-jeou has really advocated since he left office in 2016.

But keep in mind, the former ruling party, now the opposition Kuomintang, Ma Ying-jeou, was the last president who was elected for that party,

and they have lost three consecutive presidential elections.

Now, he's been a powerbroker within the KMT,

but he failed to get the two opposition candidates in the last election in January to join forces that could have potentially beaten the DPP candidate who's now president -- will be president in May, Lai Ching-te.

Look, the opposition two candidates got 60% of the vote, Lai Ching-te got 40%. If they have combined their efforts, as Ma Ying-jeou tried to do, they potentially could have won that election.

So I think Xi Jinping in Beijing is kind of seeing an opportunity that people in Taiwan don't want war.

They don't want conflict. They're still leaning towards the DPP, but there's a bit of a crack, an opening for soft power to work.

And I think that's what Xi Jinping is trying to leverage.

Is this also as much as appealing to the Taiwanese people, but also an outward projection given the timing of this meeting, as we see the US-Japan meeting at the moment?

Absolutely. I mean, again, Xi Jinping in those comments in the Great Hall of the People, as he shook hands with Ma Ying-jeou, essentially said, and I'll quote him exactly.

"External interference cannot stop the historical trend of national reunification."

External interference. So there was a not so veiled jab at the United States.

Again, so this is against the backdrop of of increasing tension, if you will, over the whole Taiwan issue.

And in the past or in the past year or two years since really Nancy Pelosi visited in the summer of a year and a half ago,

there's been ramped-up efforts by Beijing, either militarily, economically, as well as diplomatically to further isolate Taiwan because of the rising bifurcation, if you want to call it,

between East and West, China-US relations over that time frame.

So, look, Xi Jinping has been able since Ma Ying-jeou left office in 2016, he's been able to court ten nations that previously recognized Taiwan to Beijing, and that is significant.

Further isolation of Taiwan diplomatically and the economic efforts that have been ongoing, and then militarily.

So far since the election of Lai Ching-te in January, there have not been any war games in the Taiwan Strait.

But again, May 20th is that inauguration. There's still time for that.

But he's using soft power with courting Ma Ying-jeou to kind of get a pulse check on what the people of Taiwan really want after that election.