LEADING Taiwanese politician Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week in a bid to ease tensions between the breakaway province and the mainland.

Mr Ma presided over a period of warm ties with Beijing, but left office after a trade deal with the mainland failed to win approval.

The opposition Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party politician will visit from March 27 to April 7, his office said on Sunday. The party, which retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war, continues to uphold the one-China policy that sees the Beijing and Taipei administrations as rival claimants to be the legitimate government of China, a position officially accepted by all governments across the United Nations.

The office of the island’s elected leader, Tsai Ing-wen, said that Mr Ma had notified it of his plans on Monday.

Mr Ma will visit Nanjing, Wuhan and Changsha, as well as other cities, said Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen on Monday.

Mr Ma met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015.