Who Is Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese President Who Secured Re-election?

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Taipei (Taiwan) = Special Correspondent Sunmi Park] On the 11th, Tsai Ing-wen, the incumbent president and candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), secured her re-election in Taiwan's 15th presidential election.

President Tsai is a native Taiwanese 'benshengren' who grew up in a wealthy family. She followed an elite academic path, earning a Master of Laws from Cornell University in the United States (1980) and a Ph.D. in Law from the London School of Economics (LSE) in the United Kingdom (1984).

She served as a law professor at two Taiwanese universities (1984-1993), chairperson of the Mainland Affairs Council (minister-level, 2000-2004), legislator (member of the Legislative Yuan, 2004-2006), and vice premier of the Executive Yuan (deputy prime minister, 2006-2007), gaining relatively extensive administrative experience. After serving as party chairperson in 2008, she ran for president in 2012 but was defeated. However, she succeeded in her second attempt in January 2016, making history as Taiwan's first female president.

Although she made history as the first female president, she also faced crises. In the local elections held in November 2018, on the way to the presidential election, a sudden surge by a newly emerged mayor led the Kuomintang (KMT) to a landslide victory, dealing a significant political blow to President Tsai, who subsequently stepped down from the party chairperson position.

However, starting from June last year, the large-scale pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong provided an opportunity for the anti-China-leaning DPP. President Tsai, who had been politically declared dead after the local election defeat, cleverly capitalized on this situation and succeeded in shifting the presidential election into a confrontation between mainland China and the forces defending Taiwan's sovereignty, thereby gaining the upper hand.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.