Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told his country on Saturday that its people have a right to exist, and that others must respect that right. In a National Day speech, he drew a line between defending a democratic society and provoking war.
“Taiwan cherishes peace, but we won’t give up our freedom. We’re open to exchanges, but we won’t accept subordination,” Lai said. He argued that boosting defenses isn’t provocation. Increased defense investment, he said, aims to deter war, not invite it.
Dialogue on Equal Terms
Lai presented the military buildup as a way to keep talks possible, not end them. “We are strengthening our self-defence not to abandon dialogue, but to ensure that dialogue can take place on the basis of parity and dignity,” he said.
He welcomed efforts by the United States and China to manage their competition through dialogue and reduce the risk of conflict and war. He also urged the region’s democracies to act together. “Democracies in the Indo-Pacific must join forces to ensure the status quo of peace and stability in the region is not changed,” he said.
Peace, Lai added, can’t rest solely on “wishes.” He described Taiwan’s resolve as a question not only of survival in the face of “authoritarian expansion,” but also of whether the international community believes force cannot override rules or strip people of the right to determine their future.
Pressure From Beijing
China’s military and political pressure on the democratically governed island is mounting. Beijing views Taiwan as its territory, a breakaway province to be retaken by force if necessary, according to the reports. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. It calls Lai a “separatist” and has rebuffed his offers of talks.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the speech.
Taiwan is ramping up defense spending and modernising its armed forces, though China’s military is far larger. The island is adding advanced weapons, including stealth fighter jets, aircraft carriers and a large array of missiles.
Washington, Beijing and the Arms Question
Diplomacy around the island has grown tangled. In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart he hoped the United States would adhere to “the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence’” during his visit to Washington. China has pressed Washington to halt arms sales to Taiwan, most prominently during a May summit in Beijing between Trump and Xi. After that meeting, a record $14 billion arms package to the island stalled.
Beijing’s military signaling has followed a pattern. In 2024, shortly after Lai’s first National Day speech as president, China held war games around the island. It didn’t do so last year. Its last war games near Taiwan came in late December, after news of an $11-billion U.S. arms deal for Taipei, described as the largest ever.
A Divided History
China and Taiwan have had separate governments since 1949, when a civil war brought the Communist Party to power in Beijing and defeated Nationalist Party forces fled to Taiwan. That’s 77 years of separate government. National Day marks the anniversary of a 1911 uprising, 115 years ago, that led to the overthrow of China’s last imperial dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China, which remains the island’s formal name.
Foreign guests joined the celebration. Eswatini King Mswati III, whose country is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa, attended, as did Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith of the U.S. state of Indiana, who offered congratulations in Taiwan, Lai’s office said. A Japanese parliamentary delegation also visited and joined the festivities. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi angered Beijing last November by saying a hypothetical Chinese military action against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan that would justify Japanese troop engagement.
Why This Matters:
Lai’s speech puts a democratic society’s claim to self-determination at the center of a security dispute that reaches well beyond the Taiwan Strait. Roughly the whole argument rests on one question he posed directly: whether the international community believes force can override rules and strip people of the right to decide their own future. His call for Indo-Pacific democracies to coordinate, alongside his welcome of US-China dialogue, points toward shared rules and diplomacy over unilateral coercion. The stalled $14 billion arms package and Beijing’s refusal to talk show how much hinges on decisions made far from Taipei. For ordinary people on the island, the stakes are concrete: whether they keep control over their government, and whether disputes get settled at a table or by force.