Taiwan President’s gambit: Time for a tougher stance on China

TAIPEI – After Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te launched a broad drive in March against what he warned was expanding Chinese subversion and spying, the backlash was swift.

Across the Taiwan Strait, China hit back, sending a

surge of military planes and ships near the island

and warning that he was “playing with fire”.

In Taiwan, Mr Lai’s opponents accused him of dangerously goading China.

But Mr Lai is wagering that he can – and, his supporters say, must – take a harder line against Chinese influence now, notwithstanding the threats from China and the possibility that Taiwan’s opposition parties will dig in deeper against his agenda.

Mr Lai appears to have concluded that China will limit its actions against Taiwan while Beijing focuses on trying to negotiate with US President Donald Trump over the escalating trade war, said Mr David Sacks, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who monitors Taiwanese affairs.

“The best guess is that he assessed that, if he was going to do this, he should do it at a time when China doesn’t want something to complicate its discussions with the United States,” Mr Sacks, in an interview, said of Mr Lai’s security steps.

Taiwan’s political parties have for decades argued over whether to try to work with or distance the island from neighbouring China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, to be taken by force if Chinese leaders so decide.

The contention has taken on a sharper edge since Mr Lai declared on March 13 that China was a “foreign hostile force” exploiting Taiwan’s freedoms to “divide, destroy and subvert us from within”.

He laid out 17 steps to fight back, including restoring military courts to try Taiwanese military personnel accused of espionage and other security crimes.

He wants to more closely monitor Taiwanese people’s contacts with China to stop what he said was that country’s political exploitation of religious, educational and cultural exchanges.

He also demanded greater disclosure about Taiwanese politicians who visit China. Many such politicians belong to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

“We have no choice but to take even more proactive measures,” Mr Lai said.

China despises Mr Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), accusing them of being separatists. Chinese officials quickly denounced Mr Lai’s speech, especially his use of the term “foreign hostile force”.

Taiwan’s KMT, which favours ties and talks with China, accused Mr Lai of needlessly fanning tensions.

“Specifically singling out mainland China and the Chinese Communist Party is, to some degree, a provocation,” Ms Hsu Chiao-hsin, a prominent KMT lawmaker, said in an interview. “This will trigger even more tensions across the strait.”

KMT politicians said they would resist at least some of Mr Lai’s proposed steps. They argue that reinstating military courts, which were abolished in 2013 after protests over abuses of soldiers, is backsliding.

“Many of these 17 steps restrict people’s civil rights,” Ms Hsu said.

Ms Ko Chih-en, another KMT legislator, accused Mr Lai of unfairly casting his domestic critics as “red” tools of Beijing. “Don’t make it like anyone with any connection to China is given a red hat so that everyone is in fear.”

The rising political acrimony could further complicate Mr Lai’s plans, including, perhaps most crucially, a proposed increase in military spending meant to mollify the US.

Mr Trump and his team have said that Taiwan should sharply raise its military budget to as much as 10 per cent of its economy, up from the current budgeted 2.45 per cent.

Mr Lai vowed in February to use an additional “special budget” later in 2025 to push overall military spending to more than 3 per cent of the economy. But the increase must win approval from Taiwan’s legislature, where the KMT and a smaller party, the Taiwan People’s Party, hold a majority.

Mr Lai may be thinking that despite their anger at him, Taiwan’s opposition parties will ultimately back the planned increase in military spending, Mr Sacks said.

“I think that part of Lai’s calculus is also that if the opposition played games with his proposed defence spending increase, that would get Washington’s attention in a way they really don’t want,” he added.

When Taiwan’s main annual budget passed in 2025, the opposition imposed cuts and conditions that Mr Lai’s government said would hamper government operations. The opposition parties have said the cuts were aimed at wasteful spending, and Taiwan’s military preparedness would not be hurt by their measures.

“My sense is that President Lai will eventually be able to get a special budget passed by the legislature, but at some political costs,” said Mr Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington.

“The opposition parties will make him and the ruling party pay a political price, even though, eventually, they will go along with it – in part because they know that Washington is paying close attention.”

Negotiations over the special budget could be protracted and tense, even if both sides generally agree on more military spending, said Dr Raymond Sung Chen-en, vice-president of the Prospect Foundation, a government-funded institute in Taipei. “The limited window of opportunity that we have for getting this done could still vanish.”

Several KMT lawmakers, including former admiral Richard Chen Yeong-kang, said they broadly supported a rise in military spending. But the polarised atmosphere made legislative give-and-take harder, Mr Chen said. Like most opposition politicians, he blamed Mr Lai for the impasse. Mr Lai’s side blames obstruction by the opposition parties.

“Putting it harshly, there’s virtually no communication now between the two parties,” Mr Chen said of the KMT and Mr Lai’s DPP.

Mr Lai won 40 per cent of the vote in the presidential election in 2024, but his party lost its majority in the legislature, resulting in frequent stand-offs over his initiatives.

Brawls have broken out in Taiwan’s legislative chamber

, and opponents of the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party staged protests outside the legislative building in 2024.

Hoping to weaken the opposition parties’ grip on the legislature, the DPP has backed a recall campaign against opposition lawmakers, using a rule that members of the legislature can face fresh elections, outside the usual cycle, if enough voters sign petitions. The KMT has, in turn, backed recall petitions against DPP lawmakers.

Mr Lai’s recent speech on China appeared partly intended to sharpen the contrast with the opposition, said Mr Ryan Hass, an expert on China and Taiwan at the Brookings Institution.

“I think it was intended to reassert control of the narrative, to put people who are opposing his agenda on the back foot,” Mr Hass said in an interview while visiting Taipei.

Still, he and many other experts say Taiwan does face growing efforts by China to illicitly influence public opinion on the island, erode confidence in its government and military forces, and collect intelligence.

Mr Lai said the growing threat from China was reflected in the data. Sixty-four people faced charges of espionage in Taiwan in 2024, he said, three times the number charged with the offence in 2021.

Most of those accused of spying, Mr Lai said, were former or current members of Taiwan’s armed forces. NYTIMES