On 8 May 2024, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te delivered a public address at a commemoration of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), reaffirming the importance of democracy, the free market, and human rights as core values of civilisational progress. He called on Europe to strengthen its cooperation with Taiwan. President Lai noted that the Axis powers of WWII have since all transformed into fully-fledged democracies — a historical evolution which, he argued, demonstrates the institutional advantages and moral legitimacy of liberal democracy.
He further emphasised that both Taiwan and Europe are now facing multiple challenges posed by a new authoritarian bloc, including disruptions to international norms, predatory dumping practices targeting free markets, and grey-zone tactics in the spheres of military and law. President Lai urged that only through unified cooperation among democratic nations can lasting peace be achieved through strength.
His remarks were deliberately framed to resonate with Europe’s collective memory of WWII, thereby reinforcing the value-based foundations of Taiwan–EU relations. The speech can be seen as part of the Lai administration’s value alignment strategy in foreign policy — an effort to reinforce Taiwan’s legitimacy and visibility as a member of the community of “like-minded countries” amid the global retreat of democracy and rising geopolitical risks.
Democratic Resilience through New Historical Narratives
From a domestic perspective, facing mounting external threats and intensifying geopolitical rivalry, Taiwan must not only actively align itself with like-minded partners through value-based diplomacy, but also urgently pursue an inclusive and forward-looking historical memory narrative (包容與前瞻性的歷史敘事). President Lai’s VE Day address is unlikely to have had a strong unifying impact within Taiwanese society in the face of Beijing’s aggression. Despite nearly four decades of democratisation, Taiwan has yet to fully engage in meaningful discussions regarding its own role and traumas in WWII, nor has it developed a cohesive and inclusive Taiwanese national narrative.
In fact, invoking the historical framework of WWII without adequate localisation and reflection carries inherent risks. As China continues its “united front” campaign (統一戰線)— employing a hybrid strategy of military intimidation, disinformation, and legal warfare — Taiwan’s fragmented understanding of history could become a vulnerability, allowing external actors to sow division and exacerbate internal polarisation.
At present, Taiwan’s conflicting interpretations of history reveal deep-seated identity tensions and ruptures in historical consciousness. The legacy of WWII serves as a clear example: On the one hand, KMT and the Republic of China, as a victorious power, asserts its contribution to resisting Imperial Japan in the Asian theatre. This victory narrative has been propagated by the Chiang regime and the KMT’s authoritarian government since 1945 and persists today. On the other hand, Taiwanese under Japanese colonial rule at the time were subject to forced conscription, either as soldiers (台籍日本兵) in the Imperial Army or as “comfort women.” (慰安婦) These individuals’ experiences as subjects of a defeated nation were largely ignored by Tokyo and received little sympathy from Taipei, leading to their erasure in post-war memory.
In January 1946, the Republic of China unilaterally declared Taiwanese residents to be its nationals. However, this transfer of nationality failed to address the identity fractures stemming from disparate wartime experiences, resulting in a historical memory gap that remains difficult to bridge in contemporary Taiwan.
DPP: The Integration of Taiwanese Subjectivity and ROC Framework
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has garnered mainstream public support through a narrative that asserts, “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country; its current official name is the Republic of China.” During her tenure, President Tsai Ing-wen repeatedly emphasised Taiwan’s independence and distinct subjectivity, positioning this stance in direct opposition to Beijing’s narrative. In 2024, DPP candidate Lai Ching-te was elected President, breaking the conventional eight-year cycle of party alternation in Taiwan and signalling a sense of political continuity and stability. However, to genuinely strengthen a shared collective identity within society, Taiwan must still confront and resolve the deep-rooted structural contradictions left by history — most notably through the implementation of transitional justice.
On 22 June 2025, President Lai launched a series of speeches entitled the “Ten Lectures on National Unity” (團結國家十講), aimed at deepening dialogue between the government and civil society, and helping the public better understand his administration’s positions and policies. The first speech, centred on the theme of “The Nation”, began with an archaeological and historical overview of Taiwan’s development. President Lai cited international treaties such as the San Francisco Peace Treaty to assert that “the People’s Republic of China has never possessed, nor has it ever ruled, Taiwan for even a single day.”
He outlined the fundamental elements of statehood — people, territory, government, and sovereignty — and argued that neither the state’s official name nor its membership in the United Nations is a prerequisite for being considered a country. From this perspective, Taiwan meets all substantive criteria of statehood. In response to Beijing’s invocation of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to assert sovereignty over Taiwan, President Lai clarified that the resolution solely addressed the issue of representation of China within the UN and did not resolve the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty. He further noted that many countries have publicly stated that Resolution 2758 does not apply to Taiwan’s status.
The Chinese government responded through a written statement issued by Chen Binhua (陳斌華), spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council. Chen accused Lai of “conceptual manipulation” and “historical distortion,” and criticised his neglect of international legal documents such as the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation. Chen reiterated that, according to these wartime agreements and Japan’s subsequent surrender documents, Taiwan was to be returned to China. He added that the Republic of China “recovered” Taiwan on 25 October 1945 and exercised sovereignty thereafter. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, it became the sole legitimate government of China, inheriting all rights and territories of the previous regime. Thus, from Beijing’s standpoint, there was no discontinuity in China’s legal sovereignty — only a change in regime.
On 24 June, in his second lecture on the theme of “Unity”, President Lai underscored the significance of solidarity in defending Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu, citing historical military conflicts such as the 1949 Battle of Guningtou (古寧頭戰役) and the 1958 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (823砲戰), in which military and civilian efforts were united across ethnic lines. He further highlighted Taiwan’s demonstrated capacity for unity during its democratic transition and in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In terms of political doctrine, Lai referred to two key DPP policy resolutions: the 1999 Resolution on Taiwan’s Future and the 2004 Resolution on a Multicultural and United Nation. The former asserts that “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state,” with its effective jurisdiction covering Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and adjacent waters. It also stresses that “Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other,” and that any changes to the status quo must be decided by all residents through a democratic referendum. The latter resolution articulates that Taiwan is a multi-ethnic nation, where each group is a rightful constituent of the state. All spoken languages are considered national languages. Under President Tsai’s administration, the National Languages Development Act (國家語言發展法) was passed in 2019, legally establishing equal status for Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Indigenous languages alongside Mandarin Chinese.
In the conclusion of his address, President Lai outlined five forms of military and political warfare threats currently posed by the PRC. He stressed that across the political spectrum — whether one identifies with the “Taiwanese camp” (台灣派) or the “Republic of China camp” (中華民國派) — unity is essential to resist Beijing’s attempts at aggression and safeguard Taiwan’s democratic institutions.
KMT: Chinese-Centric Historiography and the Impasse of Transitional Justice
Some members of KMT have expressed discontent with President Lai Ching-te’s commemoration of VE Day, arguing that it downplays the official ROC observance of the Victory over Japan Day on 3 September — which marks the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) publicly questioned whether President Lai, in honouring the Allied victory in Europe, was in fact disregarding Taiwan’s own historical context. He even likened Lai’s administration to Nazi Germany, accusing it of oppressing opposition parties.
Former KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) echoed this sentiment, criticising Lai for neglecting the September 3rd commemoration and claiming that such an act undermines the country’s identity and dignity. She further argued that emphasising VE Day at the expense of anti-Japanese wartime memory constitutes a distortion of historical facts and a dishonour to those who sacrificed their lives during the resistance.
The KMT-leaning United Daily News (聯合報) published commentary suggesting that Lai’s political stance is more overtly pro-independence than that of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, and that he has adopted a more confrontational approach towards China. The article accused President Lai of harbouring a pathological infatuation with Japanese colonialism, asserting that by highlighting VE Day, he seeks to diminish the significance of VJ Day and obscure the contentious legacy of Japanese rule in Taiwan. According to the commentary, the Lai administration has in recent years promoted a selective reconfiguration of colonial memory — focusing on the modernising aspects of the Japanese period — via cultural initiatives and intellectual discourse, in an attempt to construct a more favourable narrative of that era.
Since the end of WWII, the historical narrative in Taiwan has been heavily influenced by the KMT’s official Chinese-centric historiography. Historian Hua Yih-fen (花亦芬) notes that this worldview has fostered a simplified, binary mode of thinking in Taiwanese society — one in which history is framed in terms of good versus evil, “us” versus “them.” This dichotomy, shaped by 19th- and 20th-century nationalist ideologies, has engendered a high degree of leniency towards the perceived in-group while reserving harsh judgement for the out-group.
Within this ideological framework, the KMT regime long avoided reflecting on its own role in the 1947 February 28 Incident, and took a passive stance on assigning accountability for state violence. Prior to democratisation, the KMT government officially classified the incident as a “riot” instigated by the Chinese Communist Party, thereby obscuring its historical context. It even claimed internationally that “Taiwan has no political prisoners (台灣沒有政治犯).” After martial law was lifted in 1987, the KMT adopted a rhetorical strategy of urging the public to “look forward, not backward.” For instance, in 1988, newly inaugurated President Lee Teng-hui urged people to “look ahead (看前面，不要看後面),” while in 1989, then-Premier Yu Kuo-hwa (俞國華) compared calls for an apology to the idea of expecting the Manchu Emperor to apologise to the Han Chinese for massacre — justifying the government’s refusal to apologise for 228 massacres.
Only after consolidating his power within the party in the early 1990s did Lee Teng-hui initiate a process of transitional justice. This included the formation of a special investigative task force under the Executive Yuan, the reception of victims’ families by the Presidential Office in 1991, and the publication of the 228 Incident Report in 1992 — although the report failed to clearly identify those responsible. In 1995, President Lee formally apologised to the people and promoted the 228 Incident Handling and Compensation Act, designating 28 February as Peace Memorial Day.
However, under KMT President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration (2008-2016), although symbolic transitional justice measures continued — such as the issuing of official documents to restore the honour of victims (回復名譽證書) and the return of personal archives — the KMT remained conservative regarding the question of responsibility. President Ma asserted that there was insufficient evidence to implicate Chiang Kai-shek in the events. This shift reflects a KMT stance moving from outright historical amnesia to selective forgetting: acknowledging certain state wrongdoings while simultaneously emphasising the party’s contributions to nation-building and attributing injustices to historical and structural conditions rather than institutional culpability.
On 26 April 2025, the KMT held a mass rally titled “Oppose the Green Communists, Resist Tyranny”, continuing its use of confrontational political rhetoric. Party Chairman Eric Chu asserted that “Red Communists threaten ROC’s security, while Green Communists undermine Taiwan’s development and unity” — equating the ruling DDP with CCP, and even comparing President Lai to Adolf Hitler. These inflammatory remarks triggered strong diplomatic protests from both the Israeli and German representative offices and other European officials in Taiwan, who condemned the inappropriate analogy between Nazi atrocities and Taiwan’s present political circumstances. On 14 May 2025, the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) jointly voted in the Legislative Yuan to remove 19 May as White Terror Memorial Day, prompting backlash from civil society groups.
These developments highlight the KMT’s continued struggle to confront its authoritarian legacy in moral and historical terms. Despite participating in Taiwan’s democratic electoral system, the party has failed to articulate a consistent vision of justice. This has contributed to a fragmented and confused value system in post-democratisation Taiwan. As the largest opposition party, the KMT’s actions have not only failed to foster social cohesion or enhance democratic resilience but have, in many respects, deepened political polarisation.
Resisting China’s Campaign: Constructing a National Narrative for Taiwan
As the latter half of 2025 approaches, PRC is expected to launch a comprehensive narrative and legal campaign, centred around a series of commemorative events referred to as the “Three Eighty-Year Anniversaries (三個八十年).” These include the 80th anniversaries of the victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War, the founding of UN and Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly, as well as what Beijing terms the “recovery of Taiwan (台灣光復).” Through these commemorations, Beijing seeks to reinforce its international narrative that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China’s territory.” Such actions reveal China’s increasing use of multi-layered influence operations—ranging from legal and informational warfare to historical narrative warfare—in an effort to seize discursive power in global public opinion.
In the face of intensifying political penetration and international united front pressure from China, Taiwan must urgently construct a national narrative that is both inclusive and normatively legitimate. President Lai has expressed hope that his Ten Lectures on National Unity will forge a broad social consensus, enabling the advancement of his legislative agenda and serving as a bulwark against Chinese attempts to divide and influence Taiwanese society. The “Ten Lectures,” along with President Lai’s strategic invocation of VE Day, indicates that DPP is actively promoting a new form of national identity discourse. This discourse aims to serve not only as a counterbalance to external threats but also as a means to foreground Taiwan’s distinctiveness, pluralistic historical experiences, and international legal standing.
However, his speech on 29 June—wherein he asserted that the Taiwanese people did not participate in the drafting of the 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China, only becoming true constitutional subjects following seven rounds of amendments beginning in 1991—sparked significant controversy. KMT legislative caucus accused him of “distorting history,” citing the participation of 18 indirectly elected Taiwanese delegates in the constitutional process. In response, DPP argued that these delegates were in fact appointed by Governor-General Chen Yi, and thus did not genuinely represent the will of the Taiwanese people.
This controversy underscores the dual challenges currently facing Taiwan’s efforts to shape a national narrative: on the one hand, there is an ongoing political contest over the authority to interpret historical events; on the other, the DPP faces internal difficulties in reconciling the narratives of both “Taiwan-centred” and “Republic of China-centred” supporters. The formation of a cohesive Taiwanese national identity is inextricably linked to the politics of historical memory among diverse social groups.
The construction of a national narrative cannot rely solely on top-down governmental messaging. Interpretations of history are profoundly shaped by identity politics and lived historical experiences, resulting in significant divergences in public historical understanding. This reflects deeper fractures in identity and conflicting historical narratives within Taiwanese society. If the Lai administration seeks to develop a national narrative capable of uniting Taiwanese society, it must engage more critically and comprehensively with the complex relationship between the Republic of China as a historical-political entity and Taiwan as the contemporary democratic polity. In particular, it must address the conceptual duality between “Republic of China” as a symbolic historical framework and “Taiwan” as the lived and evolving national subject. Transitional justice can serve as an important policy instrument.
Although the DPP has been in power for over eight years and has, since its founding, positioned transitional justice as a central political commitment, the implementation of such agendas has been uneven. While President Tsai Ing-wen institutionalised certain mechanisms for transitional justice during her watch, civil society actors have criticised the government for insufficient progress, particularly regarding Indigenous transitional justice, where commitments remain largely unfulfilled. The current Lai administration now faces the challenge of deepening and expanding transitional justice beyond the post-war authoritarian period — a focus initially chosen to address the needs of an ageing victim population and to redress the most structurally consequential political legacies of state violence.
Nevertheless, critical historical dimensions such as the legacies of Japanese colonial rule and the complex roles played by Taiwanese collaborators during WWII remain under-addressed. A comprehensive reckoning with these historical layers will shape the quality of Taiwan’s democratic consolidation and influence the nature of its emerging partnerships with regional actors such as Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian nations, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Conversely, KMT, as the largest opposition party, continues to uphold a Chinese-centric historical framework, particularly through its emphasis on the anti-Japanese resistance narrative. This historiographical orientation reproduces a monolithic logic rooted in Taiwan’s authoritarian past and illustrates the KMT’s enduring difficulty in fully confronting its own transitional justice obligations. The recent debate surrounding whether Taiwan should commemorate VE Day reveals not merely divergent diplomatic strategies between the DPP and KMT, but also reflects a broader struggle over national identity and the normative legitimacy of historical narratives.
Amid escalating Chinese influence operations—ranging from information and legal warfare to narrative contestation—Taiwan’s resilience as a democracy will increasingly depend on its ability to foster an inclusive memory culture and cultivate a shared national narrative. Achieving this necessitates a public reckoning with historical trauma, the recognition of pluralistic experiences, and the grounding of such dialogue in democratic values. Only through these means can Taiwan generate a cohesive internal identity and project a proactive narrative externally, thereby strengthening its position as a member of the international community of like-minded democracies. The construction of such a national narrative must therefore be both historically grounded and responsive to the contemporary geopolitical landscape.
