The exposure of the election situation is developing in a favorable direction for the DPP! Ogasawara Yoshiyuki: A smooth and successful National Day speech

President Lai Ching-te delivered a National Day speech today (10th) with the theme "Taiwan, a city on a hill, salt of the earth, light of the world." (Photo by reporter Tu Jianrong)

The National Day Convention was held this morning (10th). President Lai Ching-te delivered a speech titled "Taiwan, a city on a hill, salt on the ground, light in the world." Japanese political scholar Yoshiyuki Ogasawara believes that the tone of Lai Qingde’s speech was moderate and there was nothing surprising about it. He specifically mentioned that Lai Ching-te's support has recently increased, and that the situation in the nine-in-one local elections has developed in a direction favorable to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Although the speech can be criticized as full of beautiful words, from the above background and the ruling party's strategic perspective, this was a smooth and successful National Day speech.

Ogasawara Yoshiyuki posted a post on Facebook today to analyze the content of Lai Qingde's speech. He said that compared with the past two speeches, this speech only briefly mentioned the threat from China, did not specifically mention the historical perspective, and only mentioned the 30th anniversary of the direct election of the president. If we only look at the terms related to national defense and international politics, although they are the same as the past two times, there are slight differences in the way they are presented and emphasized, which shows signs of efforts to create a soft image. Compared with the speech the year before last (2024), which directly stated that "the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China are not affiliated with each other," the changes this time are quite obvious.

Regarding U.S.-China relations, Lai Ching-te mentioned that "the Taiwanese people's right to exist should be respected." This is a natural statement for Taiwan and has nothing new; rather, it can be regarded as more restrained than previous discussions. The reduction in discussion of the international situation may be due to awareness of the risks of U.S. President Trump's uncertainty, and judgments resulting from creating new stimuli.

In addition, the speech emphasized the results of economic growth, and once again proposed that this year's economic growth rate will exceed 11% and per capita GDP will reach 45,332 US dollars, doubling the goal of 10 years ago. The regime is committed to raising wages, cutting taxes, and increasing benefits. Specifically, it proposes a monthly childcare subsidy of 5,000 yuan for those aged 0 to 18, improvements to childcare and workplace environments, housing strategies for families with children, a general distribution of 10,000 yuan, increases in various benefits such as farmers’ allowances and national pensions, increases in military and public education salaries, and measures for the elderly.

Ogasawara Yoshiyuki pointed out that these measures all reflect the fiscal abundance brought about by economic growth. The general direction of sharing economic growth results will basically be welcomed by the public. Democracy in Taiwan has often been discussed only in contrast to China's authoritarianism in the past, but this speech demonstrated a kind of thinking: the ability to solve problems and help improve people's lives is the power of democracy to prevent the erosion of authoritarianism.

Ogasawara Yoshiyuki specifically mentioned that as the background of the speech, he may be aware that President Rai's support has recently increased and that the situation in the nine-in-one local elections is developing in a direction favorable to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Although it can be criticized that the speech is full of beautiful words and does not help resolve the actual opposition between the government and the opposition, judging from the background context, there is no need to deliberately cause controversy in the National Day speech. This can be said to be a lesson learned from last year’s hard-line offensive in the general recall struggle but ended in failure. From the perspective of the ruling party's strategy, this can be said to be a smooth and successful National Day speech.