Taiwan's president promises more defense spending as US calls China's moves destabilizing

Fact-check index: 72/100 — The article's core claims about Lai's National Day speech, defense spending pledge, and the Trump-Xi summit/Reuters framing are supported by the cited sources, but the causal framing in the callout is an unsupported editorial inference.

• President Lai Ching-te pledged to raise defense spending to 'deter war' on Taiwan's National Day — Matches Al Jazeera headline 'Taiwan president says defence spending boost aims to deter war' and Kyodo's 'Taiwan's Lai urges defense boost', both cited.
• Lai urged Indo-Pacific democracies to unite in defending peace — Matches The Hill/Bloomberg headline 'Taiwan's Lai calls on Indo-Pacific democracies to help maintain peace' / 'urges democracies to unite', consistent with cited sources.
• Lai accused China of unilaterally changing the status quo around the island — Matches Kyodo headline 'accuses China of changing status quo', properly cited.
• The speech followed last week's Trump-Xi summit — Bloomberg headline 'Taiwan's Lai Urges Democracies to Unite After Trump-Xi Summit' supports a temporal link, but the source snippets don't specify the summit occurred 'last week'; timing detail is unverified from the given material.
• Washington separately called recent Chinese military activity near Taiwan 'deeply destabilising' — Matches Reuters headline 'US says Chinese actions off Taiwan are deeply destabilising', properly cited.
• A summit meant to cool tensions hasn't stopped either side escalating over Taiwan, raising odds of a flashpoint around the island — This is an editorial/analytical inference not directly stated in any cited source; none of the headlines characterize the summit's intent or draw this escalation conclusion.