TAIPEI ¨C Taiwan is ¡°of course¡± a country and China lacks both the historical evidence and legal proof to back up its sovereignty claims, President Lai Ching-te said on Sunday in a strong rebuke to Beijing and its stepped up political and military pressure.

China says democratically-governed Taiwan is ¡°sacred¡± Chinese territory that has belonged to the country since ancient times, and that the island is one of its provinces with no right to be called a state.

Lai and his government strongly reject that view, and have offered talks with China multiple times but have been rejected. China calls Lai a ¡°separatist¡°.a

Giving the first of 10 speeches in a series called ¡°uniting the country¡°, Lai drew on Taiwan¡¯s history, including the millennia-long connection of its indigenous people to other Austronesians, like native Hawaiians, to show what he said was Taiwan¡¯s separate and distinct development from China.

Taiwan¡¯s people have a record of opposing invasion, like uprisings against Japan¡¯s 1895-1945 colonial rule, and under the last imperial Chinese dynasty, the Qing, Taiwan was only considered a Chinese province for eight years, he added.

¡°Of course Taiwan is a country,¡± he said at a speech to a Taiwan branch of Rotary International, pointing also to its presidential elections. ¡°But China says no, that Taiwan is not a sovereign country.¡±

China¡¯s Taiwan¡¯s Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment outside of office hours. China says the 1971 United Nations resolution, which took away Taipei¡¯s seat in the body and gave it to Beijing, is one of the legal bases of its claims.

Lai, who in March called China a ¡°hostile foreign force¡°, said it was ¡°totally wrong¡± for Beijing to say that U.N. resolution had anything to do with Taiwan¡¯s sovereignty as it was only about which government was represented at the body.

China¡¯s threat to Taiwan is real, added Lai, pointing to its daily military activities around the island.

¡°Taiwan¡¯s future can only be decided by its 23 million people ¡ª does everyone approve of this?¡± he said, to a round of applause.

The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong¡¯s communists, and that remains the island¡¯s formal name.