President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan has been on a speaking tour that he says is aimed at uniting the island against threats from China. But critics say the campaign risks backfiring, deepening political divisions at home while provoking an angry response from Beijing.

台湾总统赖清德正在全台举行巡回演讲，他称此举旨在团结岛内民众抵御来自中国的威胁。但批评人士称，这个做法可能适得其反，加剧岛内的政治分歧，同时引发北京的愤怒反应。

Mr. Lai is battling on two fronts: China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens to take it by force, and Taiwan’s opposition parties, which control the legislature and have tried to curb his administration’s policies and powers.

赖清德正在两条战线上作战：一个是宣称对台湾拥有主权，并威胁要用武力将其收回的中国；另一个是控制着台湾立法机构的反对党，它试图对赖清德政府的政策和权力进行限制。

The president’s response has been what he calls “Ten Speeches on National Unity,” but the campaign and the heated responses that it has generated are exposing the very divisions that Mr. Lai says he wants to heal. The contention reflects rifts over Taiwan’s identity, its fraught relationship with China, and how to keep the island secure.

赖清德的应对之道是发表其所谓的“团结国家十讲”，但演讲及其引发的激烈反应正在让赖清德声称他想弥合的分歧暴露无遗。这场争论反映了人们在台湾的身份认同、与中国的紧张关系，以及如何维护台湾安全等问题上的分歧。

In the three speeches that Mr. Lai has made so far, he has argued that Taiwan’s history, culture and democratic politics are incompatible with Communist-ruled China.

赖清德在目前已发表的三个演讲中提出，台湾的历史、文化和民主政治与共产党统治的中国不相配。

China threatens to “blur the national identity of our people,” Mr. Lai said in his latest speech on Sunday. “China exploits Taiwan’s good will and opportunities for exchanges to carry out united front work and infiltration,” he said, using terms that refer to China’s efforts to advance Beijing’s agenda in the world.

中国“混淆国人对国家认同之威胁”，赖清德在周日发表的最近一个讲话中说。“中国利用台湾的善意、交流的机会，进行统战渗透，”他说，他指的是中国在世界上推动北京议程的努力。

In his first speech, Mr. Lai emphasized Taiwan’s history as a Pacific Ocean island, not as a sometime outpost of imperial China. The People’s Republic of China that Mao Zedong founded in 1949 had never occupied Taiwan, he said. With its own government, military and foreign policy, he added, “of course, Taiwan is a country.”

在首次演讲中，赖清德强调了台湾作为一个太平洋岛屿的历史，而非中华帝国曾经的边远前哨。他说，毛泽东1949年成立的中华人民共和国从未占领过台湾。他还说，台湾有自己的政府、军队，以及自己的外交政策，“台湾当然是一个国家。”

Mr. Lai’s declarations have set off an escalating war of words with Beijing. Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the Chinese government office that deals with Taiwan, said on Monday that Mr. Lai had “completely abandoned his heritage and was betraying the nation.” The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, said that Mr. Lai was treating the island’s 23 million people as “cannon fodder for Taiwan independence.”

赖清德的这个说法引发了中国政府不断升级的口水战。中国的国台办发言人朱凤莲周一表示，赖清德“完全是数典忘祖、背弃民族”。中共小报《环球时报》称赖清德拉台湾的“2300万人做他的‘台独炮灰’”。

And while Mr. Lai has been making his speeches, China has been hosting Taiwan’s former president, Ma Ying-jeou of the main opposition Nationalist Party, who supports an eventual peaceful merger between China and Taiwan. Last week, Chinese officials took Mr. Ma to Dunhuang, an ancient Buddhist site in northwest China, a gesture designed to make the point that Taiwan is a part of China’s heritage.

在赖清德发表这些讲话的时候，中国一直在接待台湾前总统、台湾主要的反对党国民党前主席马英九，马英九支持两岸最终实现和平统一。上周，中国官员把马英九带到敦煌参观这个位于中国西北部的佛教古迹，以此表明台湾是中国传统的一部分。

China has furiously denounced Mr. Lai, who has been in power since May last year, accusing him of pursuing outright independence for Taiwan — a red line for Chinese leaders. The stakes are high: Beijing, which already conducts regular air and naval operations near Taiwan, may use Mr. Lai’s speeches to justify increasing its military pressure on Taiwan.

自从赖清德去年5月就任台湾总统以来，中国已多次对他予以强烈谴责，指责他寻求台湾的彻底独立，这是中国领导人的红线。他的这些讲话有巨大风险：中国政府已定期在台湾周边的水域和空中展开军事活动，它也许会把赖清德的讲话作为加大中国对台湾施加军事压力的借口。

The president’s critics in Taiwan are also harsh, accusing him of stoking divisions and jeopardizing the fragile status quo with China.

赖清德在台湾的批评者也措辞严厉，指责他加深分歧，损害脆弱的台海现状。

“He’s not only failing to unite Taiwan’s various ethnic groupings; on the contrary, I think he’s actually increasing and heightening divisiveness and polarization,” Weng Hsiao-ling, a law professor who is also an opposition lawmaker, said in an interview.

“他不仅没有把台湾的不同族群团结起来，我认为他实际上反而加大、加剧了分歧和意见的两极分化，”在立法院代表反对党的法学教授翁晓玲在接受采访时说。

The bitter rhetoric reflects the deadlock between Mr. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party and the Nationalist Party, which favors building ties with Beijing. A smaller party, the Taiwan People’s Party, is also hostile to Mr. Lai, and together the two opposition parties control the majority in the 113-member legislature. They have repeatedly blocked Mr. Lai’s proposals, including the budget.

这些激烈的言辞反映了赖清德领导的民进党与倾向于与中国建立关系的国民党之间的僵局。更小的反对党——台湾民众党也对赖清德抱有敌意。这两个反对党在113个席位的立法院控制着多数席位。他们已多次阻止了赖清德的提案获得通过，包括预算案在内。

In response, Mr. Lai’s party has endorsed a recall campaign against Nationalist members in Taiwan’s legislature.

作为回应，赖清德的政党支持一场针对立法院中的国民党立法委员进行罢免投票的运动。

Political experts say Mr. Lai is hoping to energize his supporters to win back control of the legislature after recall votes scheduled for late July. Up to two dozen Nationalist Party lawmakers may lose their seats if the recall votes gather enough support, and special elections for fresh candidates would follow.

罢免投票将于7月底举行，政治专家们说，赖清德希望激励他的支持者们夺回立法院的控制权。如果罢免投票得到足够多支持的话，至少有20名国民党立法委员可能会失去席位，然后需要通过补选来选出新的立法委员。

“He is trying to fire his base of support as much as possible in order to ensure the recalls are successful,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University in Taipei. He added that for now “Lai’s only weapon is his microphone. He is unable to pass policy, and the policy changes he can make are all very limited. Truly, the only meaningful agency he has as president is when he is making a speech.”

“他正试图尽可能地激励他的基本盘，以确保罢免投票成功，”台北的国立台湾大学政治学助理教授南乐(Lev Nachman)说。他还说，目前“赖清德唯一的武器就是他的麦克风。他无法让政策获得通过，他能进行的政策改变非常有限。作为总统，他能起真正作用的唯一方式就是发表讲话”。

The divisions reflect longstanding disagreements about Taiwan’s history and identity.

这些分歧反映了民进党与国民党在台湾历史和身份认同问题上的长期分歧。

Mr. Lai and his supporters in the “green” camp emphasize that Taiwan is separate from China, historically and politically. Mr. Lai has also accused Taiwan’s opposition of eroding Taiwan’s security and democracy. The Nationalists and their supporters in the “blue” camp argue that stronger links with China can be help maintain peace.

赖清德及其“绿营”支持者们强调，台湾与中国在历史上和政治上一直处于分离状态。赖清德还指责台湾的反对党侵蚀台湾的安全和民主。国民党及其“蓝营”支持者们则认为，加强与中国的关系有助于维护和平。

The rival views of Taiwan’s status are difficult to reconcile, said Wang Horng-luen, a scholar at Academia Sinica, a Taiwanese research institute.

台湾研究机构中央研究院的学者汪宏伦说，很难调和有关台湾地位问题的对立观点。

“Because of Taiwan’s special historical context and international setting, the narratives about Taiwan’s sovereignty are very hard to describe clearly,” he said. “No matter whether it’s the Taiwan-centered one, or the China-centered one, they both exclude the other group.”

“由于台湾的特殊历史背景和所处的国际环境，有关台湾主权的叙事很难清晰地表述出来，”他说。“无论是以台湾为中心的叙事，还是以中国为中心的叙事，它们都不把对方包括进来。”