China, Taiwan to seek cooperation as heads of ruling parties meet

Chairman of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) Eric Chu, also New Taipei mayor, gives a speech during a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan, May 1, 2015. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The leader of Taiwan's Nationalist Party will sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday in the first meeting between the heads of the ruling parties in the two rival states in more than 60 years.

Xi, as head of China's ruling Communist Party, will host Taiwan's Chu in the first meeting of its kind since defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.