As China's Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress entered into force on July 1, Taiwan finds itself on the other side of a pointed contrast: a sweeping national security reform agenda that President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) unveiled with urgency 16 months ago has quietly lost momentum, caught between opposition resistance in the legislature and the ruling party's own pre-election anxieties.
The package, known informally as the "Lai 17 Strategies," emerged from a national security council meeting on March 13, 2025. Lai publicly identified five major national security threats attributed to Beijing's influence operations and ordered government agencies to enact 17 corresponding countermeasures through legislation. Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) pledged the following day that all presidential directives would be completed on schedule. More than a year later, that promise remains substantially unfulfilled.
Cabinet's Six Security Bills Face Near-Total Legislative Gridlock
The legislative record is uneven. Several bills associated with the Lai 17 Strategies did clear Taiwan's legislature, the Legislative Yuan, during 2025 — including amendments to the Cyber Security Management Act, the Statute for Industrial Innovation, and a package of laws governing submarine cable infrastructure. But the more politically sensitive bills have largely gone nowhere.
In the final weeks of 2025, Premier Cho's Cabinet sent six national security bills to the legislature for review: the National Security Act, the Social Order Maintenance Act, the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces, among others. Of these, the Social Order Maintenance Act has been blocked by opposition parties 14 times without clearing even a first reading. The Criminal Code of the Armed Forces completed its question-and-answer phase in January 2026 but advanced no further. The Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area was admitted for review but remains stuck in committee scheduling.
Of the six bills, only the National Security Act has advanced to substantive article-by-article deliberation — and even that process has stalled in ways that have drawn sharp scrutiny.
Proposed Fines And Account Suspensions Fuel A Free Speech Alarm
Opposition resistance to the National Security Act centers on two sets of proposed provisions that critics say grant the executive branch sweeping new powers over public speech.
Under the Cabinet's draft, authorities could impose fines of up to NT$1 million against anyone who publicly advocates that foreign hostile forces wage war against Taiwan or use non-peaceful means to eliminate its sovereignty. A second set of provisions would empower the Ministry of the Interior — in coordination with the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Digital Affairs, and the Mainland Affairs Council — to order online platforms to restrict access to, or remove, specific content, and to limit or even permanently terminate user accounts where the content is deemed to constitute disinformation harmful to national security or social stability.
The Cabinet defended the measures as consistent with Article 20, Paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires states to prohibit war propaganda by law, and argued the penalties are administrative rather than criminal, subject to strict procedural safeguards. Opposition lawmakers and some legal scholars were unconvinced. They argued the draft language is too vague, the threshold for enforcement too abstract, and the potential for chilling legitimate political speech too real. The proposed expansion of executive authority over online platforms drew particular fire.
DPP legislators had already introduced multiple versions of the National Security Act amendments before Lai announced his 17-strategy package. But from the moment the bill reached the Internal Affairs Committee in May 2025, the opposition mounted sustained resistance, forcing a pause to allow for public hearings before any further review. After two public hearings were held in March 2026, involving 13 academic and legal experts, the committee resumed article-by-article deliberation on April 30.
A Cancelled Committee Week Raises Questions In The Legislature
That April 30 session covered just four articles in over three hours, reaching consensus on none. Committee convener Li Bo-yi (李柏毅), a DPP lawmaker, adjourned and announced that remaining articles would be taken up on a date to be determined.
What followed generated unusually candid criticism among legislative insiders. On June 21, Li departed for the United States as part of an official delegation led by Legislative Yuan Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Kuomintang. Before leaving, Li's office issued a formal notice canceling the Internal Affairs Committee's entire week of scheduled business. The stated rationale was that all budget items under Li's convening responsibility had been completed.
Multiple senior legislative aides told Storm Media the move was without precedent — a full week's committee operations suspended because a single convener was traveling abroad. Staffers familiar with the committee's workload pointed out that, beyond the half-reviewed National Security Act, a significant number of other bills remained pending. "There is no room to go idle for a week," one aide said.
The procedural justification was disputed on its own terms. Taiwan's central government 2026 general budget — held up in the legislature for months — had been released for committee consideration as early as April 21. Committee records show that the day before Li's April 30 National Security Act session, the Internal Affairs Committee had already held a budget review for the Ocean Affairs Council, demonstrating that budget and legislative hearings were already running in parallel. One aide questioned how a week's committee work could be suspended on budget grounds when the committee had been conducting both simultaneously.
Li's office later clarified that once all pending budget items under the committee's responsibility had been submitted, the DPP caucus would meet to determine the order of future legislative priorities.
DPP's Mayoral Candidates Grow Wary Of A Speech-Control Association
The deeper explanation for the DPP's retreat on the National Security Act may lie in electoral arithmetic. Several of the legislators most closely associated with the bill are now running for municipal office ahead of Taiwan's November nine-in-one local elections. Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), a member of the Internal Affairs Committee, is seeking the New Taipei City mayorship. Wang Mei-hui (王美惠), a former committee convener who steered early stages of the National Security Act review, is running for Chiayi City mayor. Puma Shen(沈伯洋) — among the most prominent DPP voices on national security and disinformation in the legislature — has been nominated for Taipei City mayor. All three have been involved in proposing National Security Act amendments.
DPP insiders told Storm Media that none of the campaign teams around these candidates want the party tagged with the label of "restricting free speech" before election day. Since the National Security Act became a politically charged issue, one source said, "Naturally no one wants to make a big move with the vote this close." The DPP caucus has not yet held a formal discussion on committee scheduling priorities for the remaining session.
The 2022 Election Rout Still Shapes The DPP's Calculus On Speech Legislation
The caution has a specific historical reference point that carries significant weight inside the party. Ahead of the 2022 nine-in-one elections, Taiwan's National Communications Commission promoted a draft Digital Intermediary Services Act that included provisions allowing courts to issue content restriction orders against information deemed harmful to the public interest or constituting unlawful speech online. Public backlash was swift and fierce. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) intervened to withdraw the draft on August 20, 2022. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) declared four days later, at a DPP central standing committee meeting, that defending free speech was the party's unwavering commitment.
The course correction made little difference at the ballot box. The DPP suffered its worst electoral defeat since the party was founded, winning just five of 21 county and city executive positions — a collapse that left the party's geographic foothold confined to a narrow strip of southern Taiwan. The Digital Intermediary Services Act became one of the factors cited in the post-mortem.
Now, with the 2026 elections approaching, the opposition is drawing the same comparison, with some calling the National Security Act amendments "more frightening than the Digital Intermediary Services Act." For the DPP, the parallel is politically loaded. And for Lai Ching-te — who took over from Tsai as party chair before ultimately succeeding her as president — any electoral damage in 2026 would not only affect the party's hold on local government but could complicate his own re-election campaign in 2028. In that calculus, one source close to the matter said, even a president with a clear policy agenda cannot afford to ignore electoral reality — and the National Security Act review, for now, remains on pause. （Related： 14 Nations Say Sea Ruling Stands. Beijing Calls It 'Waste Paper.' ｜ Latest ）
