Taiwan President Tells Party to Resist China, Calls Island Already Independent

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called on members of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party to stand together against threats from China during a speech at the party's annual congress in Taipei on July 19. '" The president, who won election two years earlier and also serves as party chairman, reiterated that Taiwan is already an independent country under its constitutional name, the Republic of China, and is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China.

He said Taiwan's future must be decided by its 23 million people, regardless of ethnic group or when their families arrived.

Lai pointed to China's new ethnic unity law as an example of "legal warfare" that alarms Taiwan because Beijing claims it allows action against people outside its borders. China's legal system has no jurisdiction in Taiwan. China has rebuffed Lai's repeated calls for talks and labels him a separatist.

Its Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the speech. Lai noted that over the past decade of Democratic Progressive Party government, Taiwan had faced authoritarian expansion, disinformation attacks, military threats, and diplomatic pressure without backing down. "Taiwan has shown the world that democracy is not a weakness; democracy is strength," he said.

The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists. Neither government formally recognizes the other, and no peace treaty or armistice has been signed.