Taiwan ruling party 'optimistic' about joining AIIB

Shanghai

THE head of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party says he is "optimistic" about the island joining a Beijing-led regional development bank, despite China having last month rejected Taiwan's bid to join as a founding member.

Eric Chu, who arrived in Shanghai last Saturday in the first visit to the mainland by a KMT chief since 2008, made the comments on Sunday ahead of an expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday. Mr Xi is also head of the ruling Communist Party.

China last month dashed the island's hopes of becoming a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), but a foreign ministry spokesman said it could join under an "appropriate name…