Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou is a Taiwanese politician, lawyer, and legal scholar who served as the sixth president of the Republic of China from 2008 to 2016. A member of the Kuomintang, he was previously the mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006 and the chairman of the Kuomintang for two terms.
Ma was born in British Hong Kong to a prominent waishengren family. After graduating from National Taiwan University in 1972, he served in the Republic of China Marine Corps and attained the rank of lieutenant. He then studied law in the United States, earning a master's degree from New York University in 1976 and his doctorate from Harvard University in 1981, both in international law.
Ma began his political career as a bureau director and English translator for President Chiang Ching-kuo. From 1988 to 1996, he held office first as chair of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, becoming the youngest cabinet member at age 38, and then as head of the Ministry of Justice, where he launched anti-corruption and anti-drug campaigns. In the 1998 Taipei mayoral election, he successfully ran against incumbent Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. During his mayoralty, he was elected as KMT chairman in 2005 and announced his candidacy in the 2008 Taiwanese presidential election, eventually defeating DPP nominee Frank Hsieh in a landslide majority.
Ma's presidency was defined by closer cross-strait relations with mainland China. He initiated a series of cross-strait summits, was elected again as party chairman in 2009, and signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with the People's Republic of China in 2010. After defeating Tsai Ing-wen and being reelected in 2012, his second term saw the September 2013 power struggle and the Sunflower Student Movement protests damage party reputation in the 2014 elections, leading to his resignation as KMT chair. Subsequently, he held the 2015 Ma–Xi meeting in Singapore, marking the first meeting between the leaders of the PRC and ROC since the Chinese Civil War. After leaving the presidency in 2016, Ma became a law professor at Soochow University and has remained active in KMT politics.
Early life and education
Ma was born in Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, British Hong Kong, on 13 July 1950. In a family of five children, he was the fourth child and the only son. They were an upper-class, prominent political family in Taiwan. Their ancestral home was in Fufeng, Shaanxi Province; Ma's ancestors had migrated from Shaanxi to Jiangxi and then finally to Hunan. Among his earliest ancestors was the Chinese general Ma Chao, who rose to fame in the Three Kingdoms period and was immortalized in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.Ma's mother, , was a well-known civil servant who was born to a highly educated Chinese family, attended a prestigious school in Changsha, and graduated from National Chengchi University. His father, Ma Ho-ling, was born in Xiangtan and joined the Kuomintang and its youth army in 1941. The couple met as classmates during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Ho-ling moved to Taiwan in 1949 during the Great Retreat but briefly returned to mainland China, where he moved the family from Chongqing to Hong Kong. In October 1951, Ho-ling finally immigrated with the family to Taiwan, where he worked as a mid-rank Kuomintang official.
Ma is of Hakka ancestry and speaks Hakka Chinese. He was a one year old infant when the family moved to Taiwan. Since the family was Catholic, he was raised in the Catholic faith. While growing up in Taiwan in the 1950s, Ma attended Catholic services and went with his grandmother every Sunday to Catholic mass and confession. At age eight, he was reportedly baptised a Catholic at a Catholic church in Hong Kong. He also received a baptism at Resurrection church on Dali Street in Taipei near the Huaxi Street Night Market, and remains the only Taiwanese president to have been a member of the Catholic Church.
Because he was the family's only son, Ma was pressured to succeed academically by his father, who insisted that he study the Chinese classics, master Chinese calligraphy, and practice track and field. In 1966, while a high school student, Ma decided to study law in college after being advised by his father to pursue a career similar to that of diplomat Wellington Koo. After graduating from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School, he joined the KMT in June 1968 and became a young activist for the party. He passed with high marks on the General Scholastic Ability Test and was admitted to National Taiwan University to study law, enrolling in September 1968.
College and law school
As an undergraduate student at NTU, Ma was the leader of a small KMT student group, became secretary-general of the university's student council, and encountered the baodiao movement. In his third year at the university, he was selected by the United States Department of State to travel to the U.S. as a student leader for its International Visitors Program and stayed in the country for 70 days from January 1971 to March 1971. Ma traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii, and resided with an American family in San Francisco for three weeks. He visited 20 universities, including the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Georgetown University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Upon returning to Taiwan, he led student groups at NTU to march to the American Institute in Taiwan and the Japan–Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei in protest of Japanese involvement in the Senkaku Islands dispute.In 1972, Ma graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Laws degree. After graduation, he was conscripted into the Republic of China Marine Corps and was stationed in Zuoying District. After serving two years in the navy, Ma was awarded the KMT's Sun Yat-sen Scholarship in 1974 to complete graduate studies in the United States, which he used after gaining admittance to New York University and then Harvard University. In 1976, he earned his Master of Laws degree specializing in international law from the New York University School of Law, where he studied public international law under professor Thomas M. Franck and aviation law under professor Andreas Lowenfeld. George Zeitlin, the associate dean at NYU, recognized Ma at graduation for an "outstanding academic record and performance".
Upon completing his master's degree at NYU, Ma enrolled in Harvard Law School as a doctoral student studying under professors Louis B. Sohn, Jerome A. Cohen, and Harold J. Berman. As he completed his doctorate, he attended congressional hearings at the U.S. Congress and served as the editor-in-chief of Free Chinese Monthly, an anti-communist Chinese-language magazine published in Boston. He was also involved as an editor of the Harvard Environmental Law Review, and did research under Judge Richard Reeve Baxter at the International Court of Justice. He was Harvard classmates with Taiwanese vice-president Annette Lu in 1978, diplomat Stephen Orlins, and legal scholar William Alford. Professor Cohen at Harvard, Ma's teacher and mentor, recalled: "he was a brilliant student".File:Langdell Hall, Harvard Law School.jpg|thumb|Ma studied at Harvard Law School, earning his doctorate in law in 1981 under professors Louis Sohn and Detlev Vagts.|251x251px|leftIn 1981, Ma received Harvard's most advanced law degree, a Doctor of Juridical Science, with a specialization in ocean law and international economic law. His dissertation, completed in December 1980 under the supervision of Sohn and Detlev F. Vagts, was titled, "Trouble over Oily Waters: Legal Problems of Seabed Boundaries and Foreign Investment in the East China Sea". The doctoral thesis analyzed Sino-Japanese sovereignty conflicts over the Senkaku Islands, focusing on the issue of oil extraction in the East China Sea.
Early career and rise in politics (1981–1996)
After earning his doctorate, Ma worked as an associate attorney for the Wall Street law firm of Cole and Deitz, a legal consultant for the First National Bank of Boston, and as a researcher at the University of Maryland Law School, all from 1980 to 1981. As a researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park under Taiwanese law professor Hungdah Chiu, Ma published some academic papers. Articles he wrote in Taiwanese newspapers on communism and Taiwan–United States relations attracted the attention of President Chiang Ching-kuo. In September 1981, Ma returned to Taiwan and was introduced by Fredrick Chien to President Chiang Ching-kuo, who appointed Ma as his personal English secretary and interpreter. That same year, he became an adjunct associate professor of law at National Chengchi University, a role he remained in until 1998. Ma concurrently served as deputy director of the First Bureau of the Presidential Office. In 1982, he was named the senior secretary of the Office of the President at the Presidential Office Building.At age 38, Ma was named the chairman of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission under the Executive Yuan—the cabinet's youngest-ever appointee. He would go on to serve as deputy head of the Mainland Affairs Council, a cabinet office responsible for managing Taiwan's relationship with mainland China. For his administrative experience and close ties with Chiang, Ma was appointed to multiple KMT party positions after 1984: director of the Mainland Tasks Committee, deputy secretary general of the KMT Central Committee, deputy director of the KMT National Unification Committee, and KMT representative to the National Assembly. In 1987, Chiang tasked Ma to produce a memorandum regarding allowing Taiwanese citizens family visits to China; after it was completed, the report was received favorably by high-ranking KMT officials and implemented. At the time of Chiang's death in 1988, Ma was leading reform efforts regarding censorship in Taiwan.
In 1993, Ma received national attention when President Lee Teng-hui and Premier Lien Chan appointed him as Minister of Justice. At age 43, he was considered a "handsome new official" whose dynamism made him a "darling of public opinion". He initiated hardline policies of prosecuting corruption, power abuse, and political scandals, drawing criticism from KMT party officials, some of whom were involved in, and reliant on, local corruption. Among the anti-corruption programs instituted was the "Taking the Knife to Corruption" plan centered on a doctrine of "incorruptibility and ability" in government. KMT officials complained that he "shook the foundations of the party" as 341 of 883 elected councilmen in 1994 were indicted for buying votes. His campaigns against vote buying while in office earned him the nickname "Mr. Clean". In addition, he began an anti-drug campaign and organized the ministry to restrict narcotics.
Ma built a reputation for honesty as head of the Ministry of Justice due to "frequently jailing politicians, including candidates for elective office, for vote-buying and other corrupt practices". As a result of his tough on crime approach, Ma lost party support and was relieved of the position in 1996, becoming a minister without portfolio. He decided to return to academia afterwards and accepted another teaching position at National Chengchi University. When he left office, Ma was one of the most popular politicians in Taiwan and, according to one poll, 76.5% of respondents saw him "playing a major political role within the next two years".