TAIPEI/BEIJING — Analysts say that the meeting between the leaders of Beijing and Taiwan, which comes weeks ahead of elections on the island, could be a bid by China to shape the Taiwanese presidential result by trying to show that ties will continue to improve if Taiwan continues to be ruled by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT).

“The Chinese are probably concerned that, at the moment at least, the KMT is lagging far behind the opposition DPP in the polls,” said Mr Aaron Friedberg, professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, referring to the Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party.

However, that could backfire if there was widespread opposition in Taiwan to the meeting, given increasing anti-China protests, especially among the young.

“Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping are doubtlessly concerned that their summit will help (DPP presidential candidate) Tsai Ing-wen expand her lead as the Taiwanese electorate drifts away from the mainland,” said Mr John Ciorciari, an assistant professor at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

A meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Ma, who cannot run for re-election because presidents can only serve two terms, was discussed as a possibility during the summit of Asian and Pacific leaders in Beijing last November. But, at the time, Mr Ma’s request for such an encounter was turned down by the Chinese, who were the hosts of the event, a senior Asian diplomat said, requesting anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

“Mr Xi must be looking to do Mr Ma a favour, (the Taiwanese President) has been asking for this for a long time,” the diplomat said.

Even though it may be difficult to see how the halo of Mr Xi would affect the KMT, especially given fears of mainland China, the diplomat added, there was still a strong undercurrent of not wanting to return to anything approaching Cold War hostility.

Nevertheless, Saturday’s meeting could be the last chance for Mr Xi to press China’s case for closer economic and political ties before Taiwan’s January elections for the presidency and legislature.

A win for the opposition could see a significant curtailing of Mr Ma’s pro-China initiatives, something Beijing would be loath to witness.

“This will be tricky politically in Taiwan, as the opposition will obviously use this to charge Ma and the Nationalists with kowtowing to Beijing,” said Mr Alan Romberg, East Asia programme director with Washington’s The Stimson Center.

Yet the talks could also boost the Nationalists’ credentials for driving progress in relations with China and heading off past threats and hostility from Beijing that rattled many Taiwanese. It may also help that the meeting puts Mr Ma, leader of 23 million people, on equal footing with the leader of the world’s most populous country and its second-largest economy.

“Ma and presumably the rest of the Nationalists will cast this as demonstrating the benefits of adhering to the 1992 Consensus as a constructive basis for handling cross-strait relations — indeed as the indispensable basis,” Mr Romberg said.

Any concessions Mr Ma extracts from China could help KMT presidential candidate Eric Chu in the polls, said Hong Kong Chinese politics expert Willy Lam. Mr Xi, for his part, also hopes a friendly, non-threatening meeting gives the Nationalists a boost, while showing mainland Chinese that he could be the best bet in decades for achieving unification.

But, as Dr Wu Shang-Su, a research fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told TODAY, the meeting would shape the “status quo”, and therefore “would make sure whomever to be President will not get out of the current trend of integration. In other words, Beijing’s influence in Taipei, similar to the past seven years, will continue to increase. During this process, the unification will be gradually formed like putting puzzles together.” AGENCIES (With reporting by Tang Chee Seng)