Lai Says Taiwan Will Not Give Up Freedom as Beijing Claims a Say over Its Future
Updated: 54 minutes ago
Taipei, 11 October 2026
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in his 10 October National Day address that Taiwan cherished peace but would not relinquish its freedom, that stronger defences were intended to deter rather than provoke war, and that the Taiwanese people's right to exist and determine their future must be respected. China's Taiwan Affairs Office responded by accusing him of distorting facts and exaggerating the threat from the mainland, insisting that Taiwan's future must be decided by all Chinese people, including those in Taiwan. The competing statements again expose the central political and human-rights question in the cross-strait dispute: who is entitled to decide Taiwan's future, and whether that choice can be made democratically without coercion by force. Office of the President; Reuters; Taiwan Affairs Office
Freedom and peace placed side by side
Speaking outside the Presidential Office in Taipei, Lai said Taiwan was open to exchanges but would not accept subordination. He presented self-defence as a means of making dialogue possible on the basis of parity and dignity. Lai also welcomed efforts by the United States and China to manage competition through dialogue and reduce the risk of conflict, while arguing that regional stability required respect for the historical record and for the Taiwanese people's right to exist. Office of the President; Associated Press
The address was not exclusively about relations with Beijing. Lai also discussed the economy, social welfare, energy, a falling birth rate, housing and forthcoming local elections. He presented democracy as a system that protects freedom of choice while retaining the capacity to solve public problems. This report therefore does not reduce the speech to a sovereignty slogan. Yet Beijing's rapid reply made the question of whether freedom can be preserved without external compulsion its most immediate public-interest dimension. Office of the President, Chinese text; Office of the President, English text
The speech also linked 2026 to the 30th anniversary of Taiwan's first direct presidential election. Lai said presidential authority derived from the people's mandate and, with local elections approaching, urged voters to reject threats and inducements. That anniversary makes the dispute over who may decide Taiwan's future more than a contest in diplomatic language: it concerns how the island's present system generates political authority and accommodates party competition. The official text establishes that Lai advanced this argument. It does not show that all Taiwanese people agree on cross-strait strategy or defence policy. Office of the President, Chinese text; Central News Agency
Lai said that the risks of war and authoritarian expansion required Taiwan to become a resilient democracy. He set out plans to continue defence reform, develop asymmetric capabilities and a domestic defence industry, and use a “whole-of-society” resilience programme to support the continued functioning of energy, communications, transport, finance, food and medical systems. These are statements of policy and intent. The speech does not demonstrate that every proposed investment has been implemented, nor does it by itself establish the efficiency of defence spending or the capacity of those systems under crisis conditions. Office of the President, Chinese text; Central News Agency
Beijing advances a contrary claim to decision-making authority
Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han said Lai's speech disregarded facts, reversed right and wrong, misled the public and harboured ulterior motives. She accused him of inflating a mainland threat, relying on external forces and attempting to pursue independence through military means. The office restated Beijing's position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it, and said the island's future could and must be decided jointly by all Chinese people, including people in Taiwan. Taiwan Affairs Office; Xinhua
China's defence ministry issued a further response carried by Xinhua on 11 October. It characterised higher Taiwanese defence spending and resilience measures as actions that created tension and again described Lai's approach as separatist. The response did not announce a new military exercise around Taiwan triggered by the speech, but said the People's Liberation Army would take action to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity. Xinhua citing China's Ministry of National Defence
Beijing's response accurately records the Chinese government's established one-China claim, but it does not explain what status should be accorded to the electoral mandate produced by Taiwan's present democratic system. Lai locates authority to determine the future in Taiwan's people. Beijing places Taiwanese residents within a larger political community comprising all Chinese people. The disagreement is consequently not only over sovereignty. It also concerns the identity of the people entitled to make the decision. Office of the President; Taiwan Affairs Office
Military activity provides context but does not prove causation
Taiwan's defence ministry said that in the 24 hours ending at 6 am on 10 October it detected 21 People's Liberation Army aircraft, seven navy vessels and two other Chinese government ships operating around Taiwan. Thirteen of the aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and entered areas that Taiwan describes as its northern, central and south-western air-defence identification zones. The following day's bulletin listed 12 aircraft, six navy vessels and three government ships, with five aircraft entering the south-western zone. Taiwan Ministry of National Defence, 10 October; Taiwan Ministry of National Defence, 11 October
Those figures are issued by Taiwan's defence ministry and cannot be comprehensively verified by independent observers. China's military has not publicly explained the task of each aircraft and vessel. The reports show continuing activity around the time of the address, but temporal proximity alone cannot establish that every operation was a response to the speech. Reuters noted that China held exercises after Lai's first National Day address as president in 2024 but did not repeat that response in 2025. At the time of writing, Beijing had not announced a new large-scale encirclement exercise in response to the 2026 address. Reuters; Taiwan Ministry of National Defence, 11 October
In a separate statement reported on the same day, the US State Department described Chinese coastguard, research and suspected maritime-militia activity east of Taiwan as deeply destabilising, urging Beijing to end pressure and engage Taiwan's democratically elected government. That statement addressed vessels previously observed off Taiwan's Pacific coast, not a newly confirmed operation after Lai's speech. Treating it as US intelligence about a post-address military response would improperly merge two distinct developments. Reuters on activity east of Taiwan
US counsels restraint as Taiwan's opposition highlights domestic deadlock
Reuters quoted a senior US administration official as welcoming Lai's commitment to maintaining peace and stability and saying that a routine speech could not justify aggressive or coercive action. Because the comment was attributed to an unnamed official rather than a publicly signed statement, it establishes the position communicated by the administration to Reuters but does not show that Washington endorsed every policy proposal in Lai's address. Reuters
Taiwan's domestic response was not confined to the governing party. Legislative caucuses of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT, and the Taiwan People's Party urged Lai to engage the opposition and resolve a constitutional deadlock between the executive and legislature. A KMT caucus official argued that while Lai described an open democratic “city upon a hill”, he had erected political walls against people who disagreed with him. The TPP caucus likewise called on the president to respect the legislature. These criticisms did not adopt Beijing's sovereignty claim, but they underline that external security pressure does not relieve a government of responsibility for domestic checks, balances and political pluralism. Taipei Times on the opposition response
A Taiwanese political scientist interviewed by the Central News Agency offered a different assessment, saying Lai had maintained a steady approach to cross-strait relations and had denied Beijing a legitimate pretext for coercion by defining defence as deterrence rather than provocation. This is expert analysis, not a verifiable prediction of Beijing's decisions. Whether further military, economic or diplomatic measures follow must be judged from subsequent conduct. Focus Taiwan
The human-rights issue is political choice free from coercion
The rights implications do not depend on first resolving Taiwan's contested international legal status. The directly observable circumstances are that Taiwan's current government is produced by competitive elections; Lai, speaking as president, says the island's people should determine their future; and Beijing, which does not administer Taiwan, says that decision must be made by all Chinese people while retaining the option of force to achieve unification. Both the Associated Press and Reuters set out Taiwan's democratic governance, Beijing's sovereignty claim and Taipei's rejection of that claim. Associated Press; Reuters
The public-interest issue can therefore be framed more precisely than a binary choice between unification and independence. It is whether the people affected can participate in political decisions without military threat, economic coercion or external compulsion; whether higher defence expenditure is subject to effective democratic scrutiny; and whether Taiwan's authorities continue to protect normal space for opposition parties, the media and civil society under security pressure. Those tests apply to Beijing's Taiwan policy and to Taipei's security governance. A National Day speech states a government's position; it cannot replace continuing examination of budgets, laws and their consequences for rights. Office of the President; Taipei Times on the opposition response
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