Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts President Lai Ching-te on Taiwan’s National Unity and Defense
President Lai Ching-te on Taiwan’s National Unity and Defense

President Lai Ching-te on Taiwan’s National Unity and Defense

Earlier this summer, in June 2025, President Lai Ching-te delivered the first of his “Ten Lectures on National Unity,” their goal being “to unite the people, political parties, and the nation as a whole, to advance Taiwan’s progress while resisting external threats and preserving its hard-won democracy and freedom.” To date, Lai has given four talks, all of which were delivered under the backdrop of the mass recall campaign against twenty-four members of the opposition Kuomintang, which failed to remove a single legislator on July 26.

While the talks may be framed as his way to shore up support for the recall campaign, they also serve as a venue to reach the people of Taiwan to combat narratives regarding Taiwan’s connections to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and to make a stronger case for his national security measures focused on improving Taiwan’s military and defense and diminishing PRC influence in the country. Given the political deadlock in Taipei, it is unclear how effective these speeches will be in changing any minds or getting the parties to cooperate on defense issues.

The Context of the Speeches

The purpose of the lectures was to engage with members of Taiwan’s civil society and nongovernmental organizations to explain the administration’s position on critical topics in the hopes that such a strategy would help to unite the country. The topics of the lectures—country, unity, constitutional system, national defense, diplomacy, cross-strait relations, democracy, peace, prosperity, and balanced Taiwan—cover the most important issues facing Taiwan. Lai gave the first lectures to mixed reactions, while the remaining six talks have been postponed due to typhoons and related emergency relief efforts.

These speeches did not come out nowhere. They are part of a larger strategy by the Lai administration to explain to the people the threat of the PRC and to emphasize that Taiwan is a country with its own identity. The speeches can be viewed as the public relations element of the administration’s recent efforts to curtail PRC influence throughout Taiwan. And what better way to reach the people than to have the president barnstorm across the country?

To understand the relevance of these speeches, it is necessary to go back a few months. On March 13, 2025, Lai publicly declared that the PRC was a “foreign hostile force” as defined in Taiwan’s Anti-Infiltration Act. The speech was given on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the PRC’s own Anti-Secession Law, which allows for “non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” in the event “that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted.” The goal of Taiwan’s law, which became effective in January 2020, is to “prevent the infiltration and intervention of foreign hostile forces, to ensure national security and social stability, and to safeguard the sovereignty and liberal democratic constitutional order of the Republic of China.” The law stipulates that there are three sources of infiltration: the government, political parties, and groups/organizations of, or dispatched by, the foreign hostile force.

The Lai administration concluded that the PRC met the definitions of the Anti-Infiltration Act and made the characterization due to PRC military actions aimed to intimidate Taiwan, an increase in spying cases (with an emphasis on military personnel), and pressuring of Taiwanese celebrities to denigrate Taiwan, among other things.

As a result, Lai announced seventeen strategies to combat five primary national security and united front threats. These strategies involve boosting Taiwan’s image and sovereignty through greater support of cultural industries; increasing its partners abroad to combat PRC annexation of Taiwan; restoring the military trial system for personnel suspected of violating the criminal code; revising the criminal code to prevent military personnel from expressing loyalty to the PRC; enacting stricter inspections of Taiwanese with PRC documentation; requiring politicians to publicly release their travel to the PRC; restricting who from the PRC can visit Taiwan for exchange; strengthening laws to limit the effect of PRC cognitive warfare; and reducing trade risks with the PRC.

Lai’s announcement did not necessarily change too much in the cross-Strait status quo, as everything he discussed has been known for some time. However, officially labeling the PRC as a “foreign hostile force” demonstrates how serious he is about boosting Taiwan’s security and defense as the military balance between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait no longer favors Taipei. His specific directives to government agencies and departments created new tasks to limit PRC influence in Taiwan. The speech also comes under the backdrop of the Trump administration expecting U.S. allies and partners to do more to support their own defense, which is a sour point with Taiwan as Trump administration officials and Trump himself have stated that Taiwan should spend ten percent of its gross domestic product on defense.

In response, nearly sixty People’s Liberation Army aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, forty-three of which crossed the centerline of the Taiwan Strait and with many conducting their sorties off Taiwan’s east coast. Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office, also gave a passionate warning to Taiwan:

Those who play with fire will get burned. Those who forget their roots will never have a good end; those who betray the motherland will be spurned by the people and judged by history; those who pursue ‘Taiwan independence’ and secession will end up in pieces; those who act perversely and defy the will of the world will bring about their own destruction. The unstoppable trend toward national reunification is unstoppable, and no one or any force can stop it. All malicious schemes are doomed to failure!

Such actions and statements seem to comply with the Anti-Infiltration Act’s definition of a foreign hostile force: “Countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China. The same stipulation applies to countries, political entities or groups that advocate the use of non-peaceful means to endanger the sovereignty of the Republic of China.”

Talking Up Unity

After Lai’s foreign hostile force pronouncement and the launch of investigations into government officials, military personnel, and civil servants’ ties and connections to the PRC, the administration moved on to bringing the case directly to local leaders via civil society. Lai started his first lecture with a call to action: “Today’s Taiwan needs everyone to step up and take responsibility. Every era has different responsibilities to take on. I hope everyone can unite and jointly protect national sovereignty, the democracy and freedom we cherish, as well as our way of life and the future of the next generation. This is everyone’s responsibility and the most important asset left to future generations.” The first speech attempted to frame Taiwan’s unique place in history as separate and distinct from the PRC by explaining how Taiwanese people have deep roots with Austronesian culture, which originated in Taiwan.

The speech also corrected the record on PRC distortions of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, which removed the Republic of China from the United Nations system and does not address Taiwan’s status or sovereignty. The goal of this talk was to assert that Taiwan is, in fact, a country with its own history and should be respected as such. That fact does not necessarily diminish Taiwan’s ties to the “mainland” post-civil war.

After establishing Taiwan as a country with its own history, Lai moved on to discuss unity. The speech explains Taiwan’s struggle to become a democracy, and how the country finds strength in upholding democratic values. A key part of the speech was his attempt to unite two different “factions” within Taiwanese society. Lai emphasized the importance of the Democratic Progressive Party’s 2004 Resolution on Ethnic Diversity and National Unity, which states,

Supporters of the ROC [Republic of China] identity and supporters of the Taiwanese identity should accept each other. The sovereignty of the Republic of China (ROC) belongs to all citizens of Taiwan and not another regime. Thus, identifying with Taiwan and identifying with the ROC are expressions of the same national identity, and supporters from both camps should respect, understand and accept one another, instead of misconstruing this as an ethnic conflict.

Lai’s callback to this resolution was an effort to unite two seemingly sparring factions within the country and argue that they both have the best interests of the same thing at heart. He warned, “Mutual respect, understanding, and acceptance are essential to prevent the infiltration of ‘united front’ forces and the destruction of unity for the sake of name recognition. . . . Pro-Taiwan and pro-ROC forces unite to oppose communism, safeguard democratic Taiwan, and reject the People’s Republic of China’s invasion and annexation.” Lai’s goal for this speech was to explain that the Taiwanese people should not let such identities divide them and cause them to lose focus on what is important: stopping the PRC from tearing Taiwan apart.

The third speech focused on Taiwan’s “constitutional system,” which has witnessed much tension amid the split in the Legislative Yuan and related budget freezes, controversial laws, and refusal to confirm members of the Constitutional Court. Lai’s discussion of the development of Taiwan’s democracy and changes to its constitution during and after the authoritarian period emphasized the role and importance of the courts as a safeguard and as “the last line of defense for national and social justice.” Another key part of the speech addressed the controversial laws passed by the Legislative Yuan, especially the Legislative Yuan Exercise of Powers Act. This speech was Lai’s case to the public about how the actions by the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party in the Legislative Yuan undermined Taiwan’s constitutional system. This speech could be viewed as the most political of the first group of speeches as he directly attacked their actions and explained why they were unconstitutional, as the courts earlier had found to be the case. He ended the speech hailing Taiwan’s culture of standing up to repression and demanding civil rights—as the people are the true protectors of the constitution.

The fourth, and final (to date), speech addressed the issue of Taiwan’s “national defense.” This lecture focused on respect and gratitude for the military due to its important role in protecting the sovereignty of Taiwan and supporting the people during times of crisis. And that support extends to the lives of the soldiers by increasing their pay, improving their living standards, and supporting military families. The speech then pivoted to address the most important issue of Taiwan’s national defense: China.

The discussion about China was addressed to both a domestic and an international audience by laying out the argument for why Taiwan’s defense is important for the international order:

The Chinese threat continues to undermine regional peace and has expanded beyond the first island chain, even crossing the second and third island chains. While Taiwan is threatened, so too are neighboring countries. Furthermore, China’s national development goal is to dominate the Western Pacific, and changing the rules-based international order is also a Chinese objective. In other words, if Taiwan were annexed, China would not cease its activities; it would simply be empowered to pursue regional expansion.

Lai connected this argument to explain why Taiwan needs to improve its defense capabilities, in cooperation with the United States and also independently. He laid blame on the Legislative Yuan for freezing and cutting the defense budget at a time when Taipei should be increasing its defense spending to deter the PRC—emphasizing how such actions will result in negative perceptions internationally for how seriously Taiwan takes its own national defense. The fourth speech was a call to action for all political parties and citizens to take the PRC military threat more seriously and to support an increase in defense spending.

Mission Accomplished?

The goal of the speaking tour was to unite the people of Taiwan and to explain the importance of specific policy decisions to civil society leaders. In the context of the failure to recall a single Kuomintang legislator after the fourth lecture, the speaking tour has been a failure. The postponement/cancellation of subsequent speeches also demonstrates that the administration has realized that the speeches and tour goals need to be amended—even with the rationale of the delay being typhoon relief and response.

However, the tour is not finished, and it is part of a larger strategy by the Lai administration to explain to the people the need to take more seriously the various PRC threats: military, gray zone, united front, and cognitive warfare. Viewed in this larger context, it is too soon to make a judgment, and the success of the administration’s attempt to reduce the harm of the “foreign hostile force” will not be determined by the tour alone. The unfortunate part of the speaking tour is that no matter what Lai says, the opposition parties and supporters will find specific issues with the speeches, and the PRC will accuse him of being a “Taiwan separatist,” which it has already done many, many times.

So, the question administration officials must ask themselves is: Who are they convincing? Will the speech on national defense sway skeptics in the Trump administration about how serious Taipei is about increased defense spending? Will the postponed speech on cross-Strait relations change the status quo or create space for dialogue?

The Trump administration expects results and does not care who is to blame for the defense spending freezes and cuts. The Chinese Communist Party will not open up dialogue with a Democratic Progressive Party president. Therefore, the Lai administration must take stock of the goals of the lectures and further emphasize actions connected to the seventeen strategies to combat PRC influence and threats. That will be the true path to success.

Image: Flickr | Official Photo by Liu Shu fu / Office of the President