Taiwan cherishes peace but will not give up its freedom, President Lai Ching-te said in a National Day speech, adding that there must be respect for the right of Taiwan's people to exist.
The remark, reported by Reuters on Saturday, anchors an address in which Lai paired an appeal for dialogue with a commitment to defense investment. According to Reuters, he said the increase in defense spending is intended to deter war and to support dialogue on equal terms. Al Jazeera's conflict desk summarized the same speech by emphasizing that Lai stressed peace and freedom and vowed not to tolerate aggression in the Taiwan Strait.
Lai also called on Indo-Pacific democracies to help maintain peace in the region and said the island welcomes dialogue between China and the United States to manage competition, according to coverage of the speech. That framing put Taiwan's security in the context of the wider U.S.-China relationship rather than as a bilateral matter alone.
Reuters correspondents Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard reported the remarks from Taipei. The wire's dispatch described Lai as saying Taiwan cherishes peace but will not give up freedom, and that there must be respect for the right of Taiwan's people to exist.
The address drew pickup across a range of outlets. KFGO, a Fargo, North Dakota station, carried the Reuters report under the headline that Taiwan cherishes peace but will not give up freedom. WBOW, a Terre Haute, Indiana station, carried the same wire headline on its site. Al Jazeera framed the story around Lai's statement that the defense spending boost aims to deter war. A separate account of the speech noted Lai called on Indo-Pacific democracies to help maintain peace.
The range of outlets carrying the address is itself notable. A National Day speech from Taipei that once circulated mainly through regional wires is now landing on American local radio station websites in the upper Midwest and on Middle Eastern English-language news platforms within hours. The substance of what Lai said did not change between those outlets; the Reuters text supplied the backbone for the local pickups, while Al Jazeera and the Indo-Pacific-focused account led on the security and diplomacy dimensions.
Lai's language on dialogue marked a deliberate balance. By saying Taiwan welcomes U.S.-China dialogue to manage competition, he placed the island's concerns inside a framework Washington and Beijing already use to discuss their rivalry. By saying Indo-Pacific democracies should help maintain peace, he broadened the audience beyond the two capitals. And by tying the defense budget increase to deterrence rather than to any specific provocation, he cast the spending as a tool for keeping the peace rather than for changing the status quo.
The reference to the right of Taiwan's people to exist carried particular weight in the speech. It is a formulation that goes to questions of identity and political standing rather than to any single military or diplomatic dispute, and it appeared in the Reuters account of the address alongside the line about cherishing peace without giving up freedom.
The speech comes as Taiwan's government continues to fund a defense buildup it describes as defensive in nature. Lai's framing of that spending as a way to deter war and underwrite equal dialogue mirrors language his government has used in prior public statements, though the National Day setting gave it a higher profile. National Day addresses in Taipei are closely watched because they are one of the few annual occasions when the island's leadership speaks in a single, prepared message about its posture toward Beijing and its place in the region.
Coverage of the speech fell along familiar lines. Wire reports led with the peace-and-freedom formulation and the right-to-exist line. Regional and security-focused outlets led with the call to Indo-Pacific democracies and the defense spending message. Local American stations carried the wire text largely intact.
Next News Network could not independently verify the underlying claims about the speech or its content.
Our Take
Lai Ching-te's National Day address does what Taiwan's leadership has done for years: it says the island wants peace while refusing to accept terms that would erase its people's standing. The problem for conservatives watching this from Washington is that the language of deterrence only works when someone is willing to fund it. Lai says the defense buildup is meant to deter war. That is the right framing, and it is the framing that American taxpayers and their representatives should hold Taipei to, because deterrence purchased on credit from a superpower nine time zones away is not deterrence — it is dependency. The call for Indo-Pacific democracies to help maintain peace is a polite way of saying Taiwan cannot do it alone, and the honest response from the United States is not another round of rhetorical reassurance but a hard look at whether the island's own spending, force structure and reserve system can hold a line before American reinforcements would ever arrive. Peace through strength is not a slogan reserved for the European theater. It applies in the Taiwan Strait, and it starts with the government in Taipei actually paying for the peace it says it cherishes.
