President Lai Ching-te, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), attended a youth forum in Taipei today as part of a series of events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the DPP's founding. He said that the meaning of the two words 'Taiwan independence' actually refers to Taiwan not being part of the People's Republic of China, and that the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox News, stated that he does not want to see Taiwan move toward independence but rather maintain the status quo, and said that both China and Taiwan should de-escalate the situation; Trump also said that U.S. policy toward Taiwan has not changed. Today, Lai Ching-te attended a DPP youth forum, where he mentioned that 1986, 1990, 1996, and 2000 were milestones for the DPP and for Taiwan's democratic movement. The DPP was founded on September 28, 1986; 1990 was the year of the Wild Lily student movement; 1996 saw the first direct presidential election and the missile crisis; and 2000 marked the first transfer of political power between parties. Lai stated that this year is very meaningful: it marks 40 years since the birth of Taiwan's first local democratic party. The DPP was born during the martial law period, shouldering the great mission of the nation's future development. It is also 30 years since the first direct presidential election, which declared to the international community that Taiwan is fully democratized and a new nation where sovereignty resides with the people, a very significant event. He said that the 'Free China' journal, founded by political commentators Lei Chen, Yin Hai-kuang, and Fu Cheng, argued that 'retaking the mainland is a hopeless proposition' and advocated for allowing the formation of new political parties to supervise the then corrupt government through party politics. During Lei Chen's 10 years in prison, Peng Ming-min, Hsieh