It has been more than a week since President William Lai (賴清德) gave his address to the nation to mark Double Ten National Day on Oct. 10. It seems that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not regard his address as sufficiently provocative to warrant a demonstration of its ire: There was no multiservice military drill around Taiwan, unlike Joint Sword-2024B, held four days after last year’s address.
Whatever this muted response from the CCP means, Lai’s speech was interesting because of how it compared with his National Day address last year. His speech on Friday last week either represented a change in tack in his approach to cross-strait tensions or an extension of an evolving strategy.
Last year’s address was not particularly provocative, but Lai got his shots in at a previous event, the Double Ten National Day gala at the Taipei Dome on Oct. 5 last year. During the gala, Lai had mused that, as the Republic of China (ROC) had been founded several decades prior to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the ROC was technically the “motherland” of the PRC, not the other way around. This was an obvious jibe at the CCP and a conciliatory wink at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The observation’s inherent absurdity sharpened the jibe and blunted the overture.
There were no jibes this year, just as there were no conciliatory winks to the opposition. Conspicuous by its absence was any acknowledgement of the divisions and enmity of the recall movement, nor were there any attempts to address tensions at home. The overtures in this year’s speech were instead aimed at Beijing.
This year, after the opening remarks, Lai spent about 20 percent of his time speaking about the government’s plans to improve trade and invest in business and industry, while about 15 percent of his speech outlined policies aimed at improving the lives of ordinary Taiwanese. Finally, he turned to remarks on national defense and societal resilience.
The logic of a speech’s organization can go many ways: It can follow the principle of placing the most important aspects first, or leading up to the most important aspect, which is left to last, as that is what remains more clearly in the mind of the listener. As to which logic lay behind this speech, look at the opening paragraphs.
Lai said: “Sept. 10 was the historic date when the number of days Taiwan had spent free from martial law officially surpassed the number of days endured under its stifling rule. This signifies that we have parted entirely from an authoritarian regime and its shadow.”
He thus set the context for the arc of his argument: Taiwan as a free, democratic nation, liberated from the authoritarian KMT post-Chinese Civil War regime and resistant to the CCP’s desire to return the nation to governance under authoritarian masters.
The sections on Taiwan’s economic prosperity and the investment in its future, and the promise of translating them into improvements that ordinary people would feel in their daily lives, were Lai’s way of impressing on his audience the importance of defense, deterrence and resilience in the face of threats of invasion and annexation.
In the absence of the possibility of direct communication with the CCP under the preconditions of so-called “1992 consensus” or a return to the early dichotomy of the ROC’s and PRC’s interpretations of “one China” that traditional elements within the KMT would like to see, Lai was offering a vision of a more rational regional cohabitation: adherence to the “status quo,” no mention of a declaration of independence, the avoidance of war, the protection of life and property, a shared commitment to mutual prosperity, and learning the lessons of the past regarding the destruction of war.
On Sunday, 13 new urgent care centers (UCC) officially began operations across the six special municipalities. The purpose of the centers — which are open from 8am to midnight on Sundays and national holidays — is to reduce congestion in hospital emergency rooms, especially during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year. It remains to be seen how effective these centers would be. For one, it is difficult for people to judge for themselves whether their condition warrants visiting a major hospital or a UCC — long-term public education and health promotions are necessary. Second, many emergency departments acknowledge
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Victory in conflict requires mastery of two “balances”: First, the balance of power, and second, the balance of error, or making sure that you do not make the most mistakes, thus helping your enemy’s victory. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made a decisive and potentially fatal error by making an enemy of the Jewish Nation, centered today in the State of Israel but historically one of the great civilizations extending back at least 3,000 years. Mind you, no Israeli leader has ever publicly declared that “China is our enemy,” but on October 28, 2025, self-described Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP) propaganda
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
RSS