TAIPEI&nbsp;(Reuters) -The&nbsp;mayor&nbsp;of&nbsp;Taipei&nbsp;will&nbsp;visit&nbsp;Shanghai at the end of this month for an annual city forum, his office said on Friday, a trip that will take place against the backdrop of frozen ties between the&nbsp;Taiwanese and Chinese governments.
While&nbsp;China&nbsp;has refused to speak to&nbsp;Taiwan's government since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, believing she is a separatist, city-to-city exchanges had continued until interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, Tsai's administration has cautiously been trying to reopen less sensitive people-to-people links since it lifted pandemic-related border controls late last year, aiming to engender goodwill with&nbsp;China, and a group of Shanghai officials made a low-key&nbsp;visit&nbsp;to&nbsp;Taipei&nbsp;in February.
Taipei&nbsp;Mayor&nbsp;Chiang Wan-an, from the main opposition party the Kuomintang, which traditionally favours close relations with&nbsp;China, will go to Shanghai on Aug. 29-31 for the&nbsp;Taipei-Shanghai City Forum, which was first held in 2010.
The&nbsp;Taipei&nbsp;city government said Chiang, a rising Kuomintang star, would lead the delegation to the forum, the theme of which this year is "new trends, new development".
The Kuomintang has pushed to resume contacts with&nbsp;China&nbsp;since pandemic controls were lifted, saying that dialogue was needed now more than ever given the&nbsp;tensions&nbsp;over&nbsp;Taiwan.
China, which claims the island as its territory, has been carrying out military activities near&nbsp;Taiwan, including regularly sending fighter jets into the air space around it.
"When the situation across the&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait is tense, we have a need even more for communication and exchanges, and the two cities forum can be that kind of platform," Chiang told reporters in&nbsp;Taipei.
Taiwan's ex-President Ma Ying-jeou, who remains a senior Kuomintang member, in March became the first sitting or former&nbsp;Taiwanese leader to&nbsp;visit&nbsp;mainland&nbsp;China&nbsp;since the Communist revolution in 1949, saying he hoped to bring about peace and improve relations.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by Robert Birsel)

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Taipei mayor to visit China as tensions simmer with Taiwan