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Taiwan’s main opposition leader has officially met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, marking the first such meeting in over a decade.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s main opposition party, fled to the island after losing China’s civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist Party. The two governments have never formally recognized each other. China considers Taiwan its territory, and President Xi has warned that he will reunify Taiwan with China by force if necessary. Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), rejects Beijing’s territorial claims and advocates a distinct Taiwanese sovereignty. The KMT, by contrast, has long favored closer ties with mainland China and is seeking to reach a deal with China that avoids war.

What’s going on now: KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun met Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, where Xi said unification between Taiwan and China was a “historical inevitability” and that Taiwan independence was “the chief culprit destroying peace in the Taiwan Strait.” During the meeting, Xi said, “compatriots on both sides of the strait are all Chinese…..people of one family who want peace, development, exchange, and cooperation.” Cheng, for her part, said the two sides would “seek systemic solutions to prevent and avoid war” and expressed hope that the Taiwan Strait would “no longer become a potential flashpoint of conflict.” In a notable moment, Cheng extended an open invitation for Xi to come to Taiwan, saying she hoped to one day have the opportunity to host him there.

Taiwan’s government pushed back, with the island’s Mainland Affairs Council accusing Cheng of misrepresenting the situation by framing the Taiwan-China dispute as a family disagreement rather than a conflict between two distinct governments. President Lai Ching-te’s office said the meeting was designed to advance “the annexation of Taiwan,” with Lai’s spokesperson Karen Kuo stating, “Taiwan’s future can only be decided by the Taiwanese people themselves.”

Lai himself wrote on Facebook that “compromising with authoritarian regimes only sacrifices sovereignty and democracy; it will not bring freedom, nor will it bring peace.”

While Xi and Cheng were meeting, Taiwan’s defense ministry reported 16 Chinese warplanes operating near the island on Friday, around the same time the talks were taking place. Taiwan’s deputy Mainland Affairs Council minister Shen Yu-chung told reporters Saturday that sending peace messages while applying simultaneous military pressure has always been China’s “go-to tactic.”

This all comes as the US State Department responded to the Xi-Cheng meeting by saying meaningful cross-strait exchange should involve “Beijing’s leadership and Taiwan’s democratically elected authorities without preconditions.” They added that the US “opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.”