The second Sichuan-Xi meeting will be held from September 23 to 25. (AFP)
After the Trump-Xi meeting came to an end, China's state-run media "Global Times" signed "Hai Feng" couldn't wait to publish "Taiwanese society must understand the historical significance of this meeting between the Chinese and US presidents", extending the interpretation of the Trump administration's diplomatic courtesy to Xi Jinping to mean that Taiwan should rethink its security route, and even claimed that the establishment of a so-called "constructive strategic and stable relationship" between China and the United States will create more favorable external conditions for cross-strait "reunification." This is the most familiar narrative method of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign propaganda, packaging the red carpet, state banquets and handshakes in diplomatic occasions into the strategic shift of the United States towards China. However, the facts must be made clear first. Xi Jinping’s three-day state visit from September 23 to 25 was indeed treated with high courtesy by Trump. The United States also announced that the two sides had made progress in the fields of fentanyl precursors, economy and trade, but what the White House released after the meeting was the United States’ own statement of results, not a U.S.-China joint statement. What is particularly noteworthy is that China publicly asked the United States to "oppose Taiwan independence," but the White House did not announce its acceptance of this request in public documents. These facts are probably more worthy of understanding than the "historical significance" written by the Global Times for Taiwan.
What's even more ironic is that the Global Times asked Taiwan not to become a "shooting ground for strategic testing by external forces", but deliberately ignored one of the core controversies on Taiwan Strait security issues, which is that Beijing has never given up using force to solve the Taiwan issue. If China truly believes that "a truly responsible political choice should reduce the risk of war and create a space for peace," then the same standard should first apply to Beijing itself. Before Xi Jinping's trip to the United States, it was reported that Beijing hopes Trump will stop arms sales to Taiwan. The United States has long linked arms sales to Taiwan with Taiwan's self-defense capabilities. If, on the one hand, we retain the use of force, on the other hand, we require Taiwan to lower its defense capabilities, and then describe Taiwan's pursuit of security cooperation as a "provocation," this is not a complete description of cause and effect, but only the half that is beneficial to Beijing. Peace should not only require the party under military pressure to lift its alert, but also include the party exerting pressure to reduce the threat.
Another statement worth testing by the Global Times is its attempt to describe a heads-of-state meeting as a fundamental shift in strategic competition between the United States and China. A diplomatic handshake is not a strategic alliance. During his visit, Trump called the meeting "friendship, strength and success." The White House also made it clear that it hopes to advance U.S.-China relations that are beneficial to the United States. However, the same Trump administration did not stop its anti-communist political discourse. When the White House released the content of Trump's speech to the United Nations on September 22, before the Trump-Xi meeting, it still clearly declared its opposition to communism. During the Trump-Xi meeting, the U.S. government even aired advertisements claiming to "defeat communism, socialism and Marxism." Therefore, directly interpreting Trump's state courtesy to Xi Jinping as a strategic reconciliation between the United States and China, or even further inferring that Taiwan's security cooperation has lost its meaning, are beyond the scope of what the current public facts can support. Countries can negotiate, trade, entertain and even compliment each other, while there are still institutional, military and geostrategic competitions.
Therefore, it may not only be Taiwan but also Beijing that really deserves to "understand the historical significance of the Sichuan-Xi meeting." The willingness of the United States and China to build guardrails and avoid conflicts is certainly in the interest of regional stability, but "avoiding conflicts" cannot be exchanged for requiring Taiwan to unilaterally accept the political endgame set by Beijing. If Beijing really hopes to reduce the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait, the most convincing signal is not to let the Global Times tell Taiwan what choices it should make, but to take concrete actions to reduce military coercion and commit to peacefully handling cross-strait differences. Otherwise, no matter how long the red carpet, no matter how grand the state banquet, no matter how eloquent the official media articles are, they cannot change a basic problem: when Beijing talks about "peaceful space" while not ruling out the use of force to deal with the Taiwan issue, what Taiwanese society really needs to understand is not the conclusion written by foreign propaganda for the Sichuan-Xi meeting, but that there is a line between diplomatic courtesy and national strategy that cannot be erased by propaganda.
