The need for Beijing and Washington to pursue “reconciliation and cooperation” and avoid war is the central message of her US trip, Taiwan’s main opposition leader Cheng Li-wun said in San Francisco.Cheng, leading a delegation from the Kuomintang (KMT), arrived in San Francisco on Monday evening, beginning a two-week US visit closely watched in Beijing, Taipei and Washington.In San Francisco’s Chinatown on Tuesday, Cheng said China and the US should forge “a relationship of friendship and cooperation”, and that if Washington, Beijing and Taipei worked together, they would create “fresh achievements for the peace and prosperity of the world”, according to media reports.

Cheng also held a closed-door meeting on Tuesday afternoon with scholars from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, according to the KMT.

Cheng said she hoped the first island chain, which marks the Chinese mainland’s closest seas to the wider Pacific, would “gradually transform from a front line of geopolitical contestation into a chain of peace and prosperity”, according to a KMT statement.

Peace is a ‘common wish’: Taiwan opposition leader meets Xi Jinping in Beijing in rare visit

Cheng added that she looked forward to Taipei and Washington continuing to deepen their partnership in areas such as defence and security, supply chain resilience and international participation, according to the statement.