Lai: Taiwan Must Never Become 'China's Taiwan'
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- Lai Ching-te told the DPP's annual convention on July 19 that Taiwan must protect its democracy and never become "China's Taiwan," calling on party members to unite and oppose what he called the "red terror" from Beijing.
- Lai framed China's new ethnic unity law as "legal warfare" that gives Beijing a basis to take action against people outside its borders, including Taiwanese it views as separatists, while China has rejected all criticism of the law.
- Lai reiterated that Taiwan is already an independent country whose constitutional name is the Republic of China and is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China, saying Taiwan's 23 million people must jointly decide the island's future regardless of ethnicity.
- Lai delivered his remarks in Taiwanese (Hokkien/Hoklo) rather than Mandarin, the main language of government in Taiwan, according to the report.
- China has rebuffed Lai's repeated calls for talks and labelled him a "separatist"; its Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his latest speech.
- Lai said that over a decade of DPP government, Taiwan has not yielded to "authoritarian expansion," disinformation attacks, military threats, or diplomatic pressure, concluding that "democracy is not a weakness; democracy is strength."
Why it matters: Lai escalated rhetorical stakes by branding Beijing's posture 'red terror' and tying it directly to his party's mission, while China already refuses him dialogue and labels him a separatist. With no peace treaty formally ending the conflict that began in 1949, each assertion of Taiwan's separate identity narrows the already-thin diplomatic channel between Taipei and Beijing.
