Overview
- Lai Ching-te said on a U.S. radio show that President Trump would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if he persuaded Xi Jinping to renounce the use of force against Taiwan.
- China’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused Lai of “unprincipled foreign pandering,” said he was “prostituting himself,” and warned that reliance on foreign forces to seek independence is doomed.
- The statement labeled Lai a separatist and declared that he and pro-independence forces would be “swept into the dustbin of history.”
- Reporters noted that the language used by Beijing was unusually strong for official Chinese communications.
- The exchange comes ahead of Lai’s national day speech, and Taiwan’s defense ministry separately reported increased Chinese military activity and AI-enabled “hybrid warfare” targeting the island.