(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) On Thursday (October 1), the People's Republic of China celebrated its 77th National Day. A flag-raising ceremony was held in Beijing's Tiananmen Square as usual; a celebration reception was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing the night before (September 30). About 800 Chinese and foreign people attended. Chinese President Xi Jinping also delivered a speech.
In his speech, Xi Jinping said that he was "extremely proud of the world-renowned achievements of New China and full of confidence in the bright prospects of Chinese-style modernization."
On the economic front, 2026 is the year of China's 15th Five-Year Plan, the "starting year" of the "15th Five-Year Plan"; Xi Jinping said that this year, China has worked hard to promote the "15th Five-Year Plan", enabling the Chinese economy to "move forward under pressure, move towards newness and excellence, and demonstrate strong resilience and vitality."
While focusing on economic development, Xi Jinping did not forget to mention issues across the Taiwan Strait. Xi Jinping said, "We must deepen cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation, resolutely combat Taiwan independence separatist forces, oppose interference from external forces, promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, and promote the great cause of reunification of the motherland."
Compared with his speech at the last National Day reception, Xi Jinping's wording when he mentioned cross-strait issues was slightly different. In the past two years, he has always emphasized "deepening cross-strait exchanges and cooperation." However, when he mentioned "Taiwan independence" last year, he expressed it as "resolutely opposed", and this year he said he would "resolutely fight against it." In addition, last time he stated that he would "firmly defend the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity," but this time he chose to explicitly state his intention for "peaceful reunification."
After Trump-Xi meeting, U.S. stance on Taiwan draws attention
Xi Jinping just visited the United States last week and held the second "Special Xi Meeting" this year with US President Trump in Washington. Xi Jinping said that China hopes that the United States will "handle the Taiwan issue prudently" and hopes that the United States will more clearly express its "opposition" to Taiwan independence.
The official U.S. position on Taiwan has been long-standing: it opposes any party's use of force to unilaterally change the status quo, "does not support" Taiwan independence, and hopes that differences across the Taiwan Strait will be resolved through peaceful means. After the Trump-Xi meeting, Wang Hongen, a political scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said on the social platform, "The United States has not made any public announcements or changes in its Taiwan policy. From an observational point of view, it is 0."
Previously, Trump's attitude towards Taiwan caused concerns in Taiwan, fearing that he might delay arms sales to Taiwan in order to maintain stable relations with China.
The United States approved approximately US$11 billion in arms sales to Taiwan at the end of last year, the largest in history, but another batch of US$14 billion in arms sales has yet to be approved by Trump. During the special meeting with Xi in Beijing in May this year, Trump once called arms sales to Taiwan a "very good bargaining chip" in US-China negotiations. However, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue denied on September 27 that Trump was “delaying arms sales to Taiwan to appease China,” saying that Trump has a firm stance on Taiwan and has approved higher arms sales to Taiwan during his term than other presidents.
The Taiwan government is also worried that this special meeting with Xi Jinping will show that the historical narratives of the United States and China are getting closer, which may not be beneficial to Taiwan. According to a Reuters report on the 28th, Xi Jinping and Trump mentioned that "China and the United States were allies in World War II." This description made Taiwan worry that the United States had accepted Beijing's perspective and might reduce its military support for Taiwan. In the view of the Taiwanese government, "the one who truly fought side by side with the United States was the Republic of China," not the CCP, which was "seven percent development, two percent coping, and one percent anti-Japanese" at that time.
Media: China is dissatisfied with the US exhibition of "San Francisco Peace Treaty"
Another episode that has not been officially confirmed highlights that Taiwan remains a sensitive "red line" in U.S.-China relations. The National Public Radio (NPR) quoted anonymous Chinese diplomats on Tuesday (September 29) as saying that before Xi Jinping visited the U.S. National Archives on the 25th, the United States temporarily removed the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty because China was dissatisfied with the on-site display of the document. U.S. officials also revealed that they originally expected to display other Taiwan-related documents such as the "Six Assurances" and the three U.S.-China joint communiqués, but ultimately did not do so.
The Treaty of San Francisco was a peace treaty signed between the Allied Powers, including the United States, and Japan after World War II. It is generally interpreted that Japan has given up all rights to Taiwan in the peace treaty; however, there is a gap in understanding between the parties as to who Taiwan should belong to in the future. Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China signed the peace treaty.
The NPR report quoted Ryan Hass, a China studies expert at the Brookings Institution, as saying that the San Francisco Peace Treaty left room for "undetermined status of Taiwan" and "China is dissatisfied with this fact."
Chinese officials often cite other historical documents to support their claims. For example, last year, which coincided with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose to publish a position paper on United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 on the eve of its National Day. It believed that the resolution "cleanly and thoroughly resolved the issue of the representation of all China, including Taiwan, in the United Nations from a political, legal and procedural perspective."
However, the U.S. political circles have repeatedly refuted Beijing's argument: in May last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill arguing that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 did not involve Taiwan's sovereignty; the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) also issued a statement in September of the same year, emphasizing that neither the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation nor the San Francisco Peace Treaty "determined Taiwan's final political status."
