Lai Ching‑te champions grassroots arts, cites culture as national strength; budget cut, support steady.

President Lai Ching-te publicly stated today that over the past two years, the Legislative Yuan has substantially cut and frozen the Ministry of Culture's budget during national general budget reviews, posing numerous severe challenges to grassroots cultural work and various arts and cultural promotions. Nevertheless, the central government's firm determination to support Taiwanese culture will never change. He emphasized that a truly great nation's strength does not rely solely on robust national defense and dazzling economic achievements; a deeper strength stems from overall cultural depth, as well as the entire population's profound identification with and confidence in native culture.

Looking back at the central government's general budget review process in recent years, the Ministry of Culture—serving as the core agency overseeing national cultural policy, arts development, the film, television, and pop music industries, and cultural asset preservation—has always attracted significant public attention regarding its budget compilation and execution. However, amid political jockeying between ruling and opposition parties in the Legislative Yuan and an atmosphere of strict budget review, cultural budgets have repeatedly become targets of questioning and cuts by legislators. Based on fiscal discipline or specific policy considerations, some elected representatives have adopted tough stances, retaining, freezing, or even halving parts of the Ministry of Culture's program funding. Such budget cuts have directly impacted the promotional pacing of many arts troupes, local historical and cultural operations, independent bookstores, community building, and large-scale cultural constructions that require long-term investment and gradual development, placing many frontline cultural workers under real pressure from resource contraction.

Faced with these budgetary obstacles, President Lai chose this moment to make a public statement, which not only serves to reassure the cultural community but also carries political and social significance in solidifying grassroots support. At a time when Taiwan is facing a complex international geopolitical environment and internal identity tug-of-wars, cultural governance is often seen as an important defense line for consolidating Taiwan's subjectivity and democratic values. By reiterating the argument that national strength derives from cultural depth, President Lai attempted to elevate the strategic status of culture, raising the issue of whether to support the cultural budget to the level of national security and national confidence. Through this, he highlighted the administration's stance of adhering to its core governance values despite being faced with an opposition-controlled parliament.

On a substantive level, the budget managed by the Ministry of Culture is extremely broad in scope, ranging from the preservation and transmission of traditional arts, the innovation and exhibition of contemporary arts, and the international export of the film, television, and audio industries, to the restoration of cultural assets and the execution of forward-looking infrastructure development. Each of these areas requires stable financial support as a backing. When budgets suffer extensive cuts or freezes, the Ministry of Culture often has to expend massive administrative resources communicating and reporting to unfreeze budgets. This not only slows down administrative efficiency in policy execution, but also plunges many small and medium-sized arts troupes that rely on government subsidies into financial planning uncertainty. President Lai's statement is essentially an instruction to the executive branch, demanding that under the framework of limited resources and parliamentary oversight, resources must be allocated more wisely to ensure that the cultural grassroots and core industries most in need of help do not run out of funds.

Looking ahead, the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Culture, when facing parliamentary oversight, must not only continue to strengthen communication and explanation with ruling and opposition legislators to strive for the rational compilation and unfreezing of budgets, but also clearly account to the general public for the social benefits and economic output generated by every cultural investment. Culture is not merely a government expenditure item, but a form of soft power that generates economic benefits and international visibility. President Lai's remarks this time set the tone for Taiwan's cultural development, highlighting that amidst the turbulence of party politics, safeguarding Taiwan's cultural subjectivity and developmental momentum remains the unshakable core mission and long-term commitment of the ruling team.