Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai Ing-wen is a Taiwanese politician and legal scholar who served as the seventh president of the Republic of China from 2016 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party, she intermittently served as chair of the DPP from 2008 to 2012, 2014 to 2018, and 2020 to 2022. She was the first woman to hold the presidency in Taiwan's history.
Tsai was born in Taipei and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in law from National Taiwan University and Cornell University, respectively. She went to England to study law at the London School of Economics, where she received a PhD in 1984, and became a law professor. In 1993, she was appointed to a series of governmental positions by the ruling Kuomintang party and was one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine under President Lee Teng-hui.
During the first term of Chen Shui-bian's presidency, Tsai served as Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council. She joined the DPP in 2004 and served briefly as a party member of the Legislative Yuan. She was appointed as Vice Premier under Su Tseng-chang but resigned in 2007. Following the DPP's defeat in the presidential election in 2008, she was elected as party chair of the DPP, but she resigned when the party lost the presidential election in 2012.
Tsai ran for New Taipei City mayorship in the 2010 municipal elections but was defeated by the KMT candidate, Eric Chu. In April 2011, Tsai became the first woman to be nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate in the history of Taiwan after defeating her former superior, Su Tseng-chang, in the DPP's primary election by a slight margin. In the 2012 Taiwanese presidential election, she was defeated by incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou, but she won her first term of presidency in the 2016 presidential election by a landslide in a rematch against Eric Chu, becoming the first woman to serve as Taiwan's president. In the 2020 presidential election, she was re-elected as president after winning the election against Han Kuo-yu. She was succeeded as president by Lai Ching-te.
Early life and career
Tsai was born at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Zhongshan District, Taipei City, on 31 August 1956. She was the youngest of eleven children. Her father, Tsai Chieh-sheng, was a businessman who ran an auto repair shop, and her mother, Chang Chin-fong, was a housewife. Chieh-sheng was of Hakka Chinese descent while Chin-fong was an aboriginal Taiwanese member of the Paiwan.Tsai went to high school at Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Girls High School. She chose to study law at the behest of her father. After graduation, she studied law at National Taiwan University and graduated with her Bachelor of Laws in 1978. Tsai then completed graduate studies in the United States at Cornell University, where she earned a Master of Laws from Cornell Law School in 1980. She chose to pursue doctoral studies afterwards in England at the London School of Economics and was awarded a Ph.D. in law from the University of London in 1984.
After she received her doctorate, Tsai returned to Taiwan and taught law at the School of Law of Soochow University and National Chengchi University, both in Taipei. In the 1990s, Tsai was also appointed to the Fair Trade Commission and the Copyright Commission. She served as consultant for the Mainland Affairs Council and the National Security Council. She also led the drafting team on the Statute Governing Relations with Hong Kong and Macau.
Rise in politics
In 2000, Tsai was given the high-profile appointment of chair of the Mainland Affairs Council. Confirming the widely held belief that she maintained Pan-Green sympathies, Tsai joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 2004. She was subsequently nominated by the DPP to be a candidate in the 2004 legislative election and was elected as a legislator-at-large.On 26 January 2006, Tsai was appointed to the post of vice president of the Executive Yuan, a position commonly referred to as vice premier. She concurrently served as chairwoman of the Consumer Protection Commission.
On 17 May 2007, Tsai, along with the rest of the cabinet of out-going Premier Su Tseng-chang, resigned to make way for incoming Premier Chang Chun-hsiung and his cabinet. Premier Chang named Chiou I-jen, the incumbent secretary-general of the Presidential Office to replace Tsai as vice premier. She then served as the chair of TaiMedBiologics, a biotechnology company based in Taiwan. The Kuomintang accused Tsai of contracting government work out to TaiMedBiologics during her term as vice premier, while planning to leave the government and lead the company afterward. She was later cleared of all alleged wrongdoing.
In Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou's search for his running mate for the 2008 ROC presidential election, Tsai, a DPP member, was surprisingly suggested. Ma stated that there were no set criteria for a running mate, that his search would not be defined by gender, occupation, or even party affiliation.
On 19 May 2008, Tsai defeated Koo Kwang-ming in the election for DPP chair, and succeeded outgoing Frank Hsieh as the 12th-term chair of the party. She was the first woman to chair a major Taiwanese political party.
DPP chair
First term: 2008–2012
Tsai took office on 20 May 2008, the same day Ma Ying-jeou was inaugurated as president. She said that DPP would work to deepen the Taiwanese localization movement while defending social justice. She criticized Ma for mentioning closer Cross-Strait relations but nothing about Taiwan's sovereignty and national security.Tsai questioned Ma's stance on Taiwan's sovereign status. Ma emphasized the importance of the so-called 1992 Consensus and called Tsai a Taiwan independence extremist. Tsai criticized Ma's government for not answering her question and labeling others.
After former President Chen Shui-bian's acknowledgment of transferring past campaign funds overseas, Tsai apologized to the public and also said that the DPP would not try to cover up for Chen's alleged misdeeds. The Clean Government Commission was set up to investigate corruption within the DPP.
On 25 April 2010, Tsai participated in a televised debate against President and Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou over a proposed trade agreement, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement ; while President Ma believed ECFA would increase Taiwanese exports to mainland China and lower unemployment rates, Tsai said it "will force Taiwan to open up for cheap Chinese exports eventually" and certain domestic industries will be harmed by the mainland trade invasion. Tsai also said that the pact "will make Taiwan lose its independence in cross-strait relations and become a Chinese parasite" and that Taiwan should negotiate with China under the multilateral-framework World Trade Organization, which would offer more trade protections and emphasize Taiwan's distinct status.
Under Tsai's leadership, along with some of KMT's unpopular policies, the DPP regained momentum in elections of 2009, after major defeats from 2006 to 2008. In 2010, she was re-elected as the chair of the DPP.
Tsai made a controversial statement in May 2010 claiming that the Republic of China was a "government-in-exile" non-native to Taiwan; however on 8 October 2011, two days prior to the 100-year anniversary celebrations of the Double Ten Day, Tsai changed her statement, stating that "The ROC is Taiwan, Taiwan is the ROC, and the current ROC government is no longer ruled by a non-native political power".
Tsai resigned as chair of the DPP after losing her 2012 presidential election bid to incumbent Ma Ying-jeou.
Second term: 2014–2018
On 15 March 2014, Tsai announced that she would once more run for party chief of the DPP against incumbent Su Tseng-chang and Frank Hsieh. However, both Su and Hsieh dropped out of the election in the aftermath of the Sunflower Student Movement. Tsai defeated Kaohsiung County deputy commissioner Kuo Tai-lin by 79,676 votes.Tsai led the DPP to an historic victory in the local elections held on 29 November 2014, in which the party secured leadership of 13 of Taiwan's 22 municipalities and counties. The DPP's stunning victory in the elections strengthened Tsai's position within the party and placed her as the front-runner in the 2016 Presidential Elections; she announced her second bid for the Presidency on 15 February 2015. On 16 January 2016, she won the election by a landslide, winning 56.1% of votes, beating her opponent Eric Chu, who won 31.1% of the votes.
On 24 November 2018, she resigned as leader of the Democratic Progressive Party and refused Premier Lai Ching-te's resignation after a major defeat in local elections.
Third term: 2020–2022
Tsai resumed the Democratic Progressive Party leadership from Cho Jung-tai on 20 May 2020, when she was inaugurated for her second presidential term. She resigned as party leader following the 2022 Taiwanese local elections.Presidential campaigns
2012
On 11 March 2011, Tsai Ing-wen officially announced her run for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Progressive Party. On 27 April 2011, Tsai became the first female presidential candidate in Taiwan after she defeated former Premier Su Tseng-chang by a small margin in a nationwide phone poll that served as the party's primary. Tsai ran against incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang and James Soong of the People First Party in the 5th direct presidential election, which was held on 14 January 2012. Garnering 45.63% of the vote, she conceded defeat to President Ma in an international press conference, resigning her seat as Chairman of the DPP.2016
On 15 February 2015, Tsai officially registered for the Democratic Progressive Party's presidential nomination primary. Though Lai Ching-te and Su Tseng-chang were seen as likely opponents, Tsai was the only candidate to run in the primary and the DPP officially nominated her as the presidential candidate on 15 April.During summer of 2015, Tsai embarked on a visit to the United States and met a number of US policy makers including Senators John McCain and Jack Reed. In her speech addressing Taiwanese diaspora on the east coast of the United States, Tsai signaled a willingness to cooperate with the rising Third Party coalition in Taiwan in the incoming general election. On 14 November, Tsai's campaign announced that she had chosen Chen Chien-jen as DPP vice presidential candidate. On 16 January 2016, Tsai won the presidential election, beating her opponent Eric Chu by a margin of 25.04%. Tsai was inaugurated as president on 20 May 2016.
After her election, Tsai was named one of "The 100 Most Influential People" in TIME magazine 2 May 2016 issue.