President 
Lai Ching-te pledged to push Taiwan's cultural development at the 2026 National Culture Conference on Sept. 20, where Premier Cho Jung-tai urged the cultural sector to unite after repeated cuts to the Culture Ministry's budget. The Legislative Yuan had cut that budget two years running, Liberty Times reported, and the event was the conference's final session, a national plenary.
What did Lai pledge? Addressing the conference theme, "Future Tense," Lai said he would keep pushing on four fronts: taking root at the grassroots, cultivating a locally rooted cultural identity, advancing technology and dignity together to keep the industry healthy, and going out into the world, PTS reported. "Let the world know Taiwan through its works, and let Taiwan's creations be positioned globally and marketed worldwide," he said. The conference is held once every four years.
What did Cho and the culture minister say? Cho and Culture Minister Li Yuan both raised the earlier budget cuts in their speeches, PTS reported. Li said the conference could help the ministry find "many new keywords, full of hope," rather than only "the budget was cut." Cho said the cuts and freezes were "enormous, enormous harm to the cultural sector," and that the sector should unite and be able to resist "this kind of culture killer" at home. Cho also urged it to reject foreign cultural incursions such as TikTok, Liberty Times reported, while Chen Pei-yu called on the opposition not to let culture become a casualty of political struggle.
Why were groups protesting? Across the road in Liberty Square, several cultural groups protested that the Culture Ministry had not listened to their proposals, including on heritage-preservation disputes in which it cited local autonomy and opened no dedicated investigation, PTS reported. They want the Lai government to amend the law to set up a central relief and coordination platform for major disputes, and to oversee reform of local heritage review committees, which they said were dominated by a few members and run as closed-door "black boxes." One lawyer among them said they hoped for a central system that keeps each heritage site a living settlement, not merely approved and registered.
How did the ministry respond? Some disputes involve national construction projects, local urban-plan changes and private property rights, where different laws apply, the ministry said. It said it had written to local authorities asking them to keep detailed records of heritage reviews to improve transparency, and would work with other ministries on public communication and statutory procedures in cross-ministry development cases.
Figures referenced: Lai Ching-te. — JudgeMarket.
