President Lai Ching-te's National Day gala speech emphasized the history of the Republic of China, which predates the People's Republic of China. Political scientist Ja Ian Chong breaks down the speech for TaiwanPlus.
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00:00Could you tell me first, where are Lai's comments coming from, and are they in line with previous
00:04president's statements?
00:06So Lai's comments really come from the very entangled history of Taiwan, the Republic
00:12of China, and the People's Republic of China.
00:14It also brings up questions of what you think China is or is not.
00:18So there is the view that the ROC, the Republic of China, established in 1912, predates the
00:29People's Republic of China, established in 1949.
00:33That is a historical fact.
00:35I think where Lai would be more similar to presidents, really starting from Li Teng-hui
00:43in the 90s, but including Ma Ying-jeou, et cetera, would be to insist on Taiwan and so
00:51the Republic of China, Taiwan, being distinct and separate, not subordinate to the People's
00:58Republic of China.
00:59There tends to be confusion over the formal name Republic of China, Taiwan, and China.
01:04China as a cultural and political entity pre-existed before the ROC and the PRC came about.
01:14There was a China.
01:15It's just that the PRC today wants to claim that history.
01:18One of the concerns about Lai as president was that he might make provocative statements
01:22towards China.
01:23Would you consider this one of them?
01:25I don't think it's provocative, but I think there are two things going on.
01:31One is there is some confusion, and secondly, there has been an ongoing effort to paint
01:38Lai as provocative and dangerous by the PRC, but others as well.
01:43So where the confusion lies is I've seen a lot of the reporting surrounding Lai's speech
01:49saying that Taiwan is...it's a statement about Taiwan's sovereignty and that Taiwan
01:59is not part of China, that he's rejecting China.
02:02So this gets to what I mentioned earlier about what you think China is.
02:05If you think China is exclusively the People's Republic of China, then by saying that Taiwan
02:10is not subordinate, I suppose one view would be to say, well, that's provocative to Beijing.
02:15But Beijing finds many things that they don't find consistent with their own narrative provocative.
02:21Now these were just comments that he made leading up to Taiwan's National Day.
02:26When can we expect a reaction from Beijing?
02:28And do you think that he'll continue to make these sort of statements at the actual National
02:32Day speech?
02:34I think Lai will continue with these comments because they draw a line of consistency between
02:40himself and Taiwan, and at least to Ma Ying-jeou, this non-mutual subordination between the
02:47ROC and the PRC, this idea that Taiwan is a distinct entity which has truth to it in
02:54so far as Beijing does not rule Taiwan, it is unable to impose its writ on Taiwan.
02:59So that is an empirical fact.
03:02Now to sort of draw that continuity also allows Lai to demonstrate that he is actually not
03:09being provocative.
03:10I think the bigger response will probably be to his double-tenth National Day speech
03:16on October 10th, right?
03:19And that's perhaps when we will see a more fully formed response from Beijing and efforts
03:25to sort of really shape the narrative.