Lai refutes PRC's claims over Taiwan in 1st of 10 speeches

New Taipei, June 22 (CNA) President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) on Sunday reaffirmed the Republic of China's (Taiwan) sovereignty while refuting the People's Republic of China's (PRC) claim over the country, in his first of a total of 10 scheduled speeches set to be delivered in the following weeks.

In his speech at a Rotary International regional meeting in New Taipei, Lai said a sovereign state is typically defined by four key characteristics: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.

Taiwan checked all the boxes despite not being a member of the United Nations, Lai said.

The president added it was a long-held stance that, as a sovereign state, Taiwan is not subordinate to the PRC, as the latter repeatedly claims.

Lai said that the PRC has, over the past decades, used United Nations Resolution 2758 to claim it has sovereignty over Taiwan.

However, Lai said, the 1971 resolution makes no mention of Taiwan and only deals with China's representation in the U.N. and the removal of the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek.

The president added that the United States and many like-minded countries have also criticized the PRC for misusing the U.N. resolution to claim sovereignty over Taiwan.

Resolution 2758 was adopted by the 26th U.N. General Assembly in 1971 to address the issue of China's representation at the international body. It resulted in the ROC, Taiwan's official name, losing its seat at the U.N. to the PRC.

Taiwan has since been excluded from the U.N. and its affiliated institutions, and it is not recognized by most of the multilateral body's member states as a country.

Lai refuted Beijing's claims of holding sovereignty over Taiwan "since ancient times," saying there is scant historical record of official interactions between the island and China before the late 17th century.

Taiwan itself has thousands of years of history and has been widely considered the origin of the Austronesian language family and the Austronesian peoples, he said.

The PRC has never exercised sovereignty over Taiwan or other outlying islands administered by the ROC (Taiwan), he added.

"Regardless of what name we choose to call our nation - the Republic of China; the Republic of China Taiwan, or Taiwan, we are an independent country," he said.

Lai's speech on Sunday was on the topic of "the nation," with his following nine talks set to focus on unity, Taiwan's constitutional system, diplomacy, national defense, cross-Taiwan Strait relations, democracy, peace, prosperity, and equal development of the country, according to the Presidential Office.

According to Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧), the president's scheduled 10 speeches are aimed at uniting the country in response to the "volatile geopolitical situation and threats from authoritarian regimes."

However, Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the opposition Kuomintang said Sunday that the president should focus on what problems he has actually solved for the people, rather than giving talks for personal or partisan interests.

Chu described the mass recall movement targeting opposition lawmakers as unprecedented in any democratic country, saying it would set a dangerous precedent and was not a path to national unity.