Free Lectures" The Sichuan-Xi meeting ended, and Taiwan's sovereignty issue has just begun~

The meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping is over. For days, news pages have been filled with trade, tariffs, technology and geopolitics. But for Taiwan, what is really worth pondering may not be what happened in this meeting, but a more fundamental question behind it: Who should decide Taiwan's future?

During the Trump-Xi meeting, the two visited the U.S. National Archives together. Although some foreign media quoted sources from Washington as pointing out that the original itinerary may involve historical documents such as the Treaty of Wangxia and the 1951 Peace of San Francisco. Although the details have not been fully confirmed, it has unexpectedly stirred up sensitive historical nerves.

History is never just the past. Take Article 2 of the "San Francisco Peace Treaty" as an example. Japan gave up all rights over Taiwan and Penghu without specifying its ownership. It has been one of the documents in the international discussion of Taiwan's status for many years. Beijing has its own historical narrative, but international legal principles and historical memory will not be changed by unilateral repeated claims.

However, the essence of great power diplomacy is interests and reality. After the Trump-Xi meeting, the status quo has not been completely reversed by a summit, which reminds us: Taiwan's security and future must not be entirely dependent on the goodwill of any foreign power or a moment of confrontation at the conference table.

We often regard sovereignty and security as cold international law or national defense issues, but they will ultimately return to the core - do Taiwanese people have the ability to determine their own destiny? This answer will never be written in the minutes of meetings of major powers.

It is worth noting that the nine-in-one local elections on November 28 are about to take place. Some people think that local elections only talk about people's livelihood and domestic affairs and have nothing to do with cross-strait diplomacy; but from another perspective, this is the most precious daily life of Taiwan's democracy. A country's subjectivity is not only displayed at the international negotiation table, but also exists in every public debate, party competition and peaceful vote handover.

Frequent and sound democratic elections are Taiwan’s most powerful practice in proving “who we are” to the world. It sent a clear signal to the international community: Taiwan can have different opinions and criticize the government, but it will always be the Taiwanese people themselves who determine the direction of the island.

The Sichuan-Xi meeting can come to an end, and the international situation will continue to change. But as long as we can safeguard our democratic institutions, improve our defense resilience, and take collective responsibility for this land, we will hold the most critical sovereignty card.

Historical documents cannot vote for the Taiwanese people, and the Trump-Xi meeting cannot decide our destiny for us. Taiwan's sovereignty is not in Beijing's narrative, nor on the desk in Washington, but in the hands of every citizen. The story on the next page is written by ourselves.