Tsai Ing-wen

On January 14, 2012, Tsai Ing-wen lost the presidential election by a margin of 800,000 votes. On election night, she stood on stage and told her supporters: "You can cry, but don't lose heart. You can grieve, but don't give up."¹

Four years later, she won 6.89 million votes — a 56.1% vote share — and became the 14th president of the Republic of China, and Taiwan's first female head of state.²

30-Second Overview

Tsai Ing-wen, born in 1956 in Taipei, of Paiwan indigenous descent.³ She holds a law degree from National Taiwan University, an LLM from Cornell, and a PhD from the London School of Economics. Before entering politics she was an international trade law scholar and WTO negotiator. She served as president from 2016 to 2024. During her term she completed Asia's first same-sex marriage law,⁴ formally apologized to indigenous peoples on behalf of the government,⁵ pushed through pension reform, and led Taiwan through the early stages of COVID-19. She won re-election in 2020 with 8.17 million votes — the highest vote total in Taiwan's presidential election history.⁶

The Youngest of Eleven Children

Tsai Ing-wen was born on August 31, 1956, at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei. Her father, Tsai Chieh-sheng, ran an auto repair shop that in its early days serviced vehicles for American forces stationed in Taiwan, and later moved into real estate. Her mother was Chang Chin-feng. Tsai was eleventh among eleven children across four families.³

Her ethnic background is itself a reflection of Taiwan's diversity: Hakka, Southern Min (Hokkien), and Paiwan indigenous lineages all intersect in her. The Paiwan blood from her grandmother's side makes her the first president in Taiwan's history with indigenous heritage; her Paiwan name is Tjuku.³

After graduating from the NTU law department in 1978, she went to the United States. She earned an LLM from Cornell in 1980, then went to the London School of Economics for her doctorate. She completed her doctoral dissertation, Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures, in 1984; her supervisor was Michael J. Elliott.⁷

In 2019, her doctoral dissertation became a political weapon — it was challenged as non-existent. LSE issued an official statement in October 2019 confirming that the degree was genuine and valid.⁷ The reason the dissertation had not been catalogued for thirty-five years was simply that she had never submitted a copy to the library.

From Negotiating Table to Political Stage

After returning to Taiwan, Tsai first taught international trade law at National Chengchi University. From 1993, she was recruited by the government as a legal advisor for Taiwan's GATT/WTO accession negotiations, participating in the long process of Taiwan joining the World Trade Organization.⁸ This experience made her expert at one thing: fighting for space for a small economy amid the jockeying of great powers.

In 1999, she participated in drafting Lee Teng-hui's "special state-to-state relationship" (Two-States Theory).⁸ This was her first contact with the most sensitive red line in cross-strait relations.

After the 2000 change of ruling party, Chen Shui-bian appointed her Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (2000 to 2004).⁸ She was not a DPP member — she did not officially join the party until 2004. For a scholar without party membership to oversee cross-strait affairs is nearly impossible in Taiwan's politics, but this is how Tsai Ing-wen entered the political core.

Losing by 800,000 Votes — Then What?

In 2008, Tsai Ing-wen took over as DPP chair. This was the moment when the DPP's reputation had hit rock bottom due to the Chen Shui-bian corruption scandal.¹

In 2012, she ran for president for the first time and lost to Ma Ying-jeou by 800,000 votes. This was the lowest point of her political career. But she did not leave.

In 2014, she again became party chair, catching the wave of the Sunflower Movement and the subsequent collapse of public trust in the KMT. On January 16, 2016, she was elected with a 56.1% vote share, receiving 6.89 million votes.² On the day she was inaugurated, Taiwan had its first female president.

China's response was almost immediate. Tsai refused to accept the "1992 Consensus," and Beijing severed all official cross-strait communication channels.⁹

Two Signatures

The two most historically significant moments of Tsai Ing-wen's presidential term were each a signature.

August 1, 2016, Indigenous Peoples' Day. She formally apologized on behalf of the government to Taiwan's indigenous peoples at the Presidential Office's Ching-kuo Hall — the first time in Taiwanese history.⁵ Bunun elder Hu Chin-niang lit millet stalks at the scene to guide ancestral spirits. But outside the Presidential Office's main gate, another group of indigenous people was blocked by police shields, refusing to accept this apology.

"For the suffering and unfair treatment that you have endured over the past four hundred years, I apologize on behalf of the government."⁵

May 24, 2019, the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748 Implementation Act took effect. Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.⁴ Tsai Ing-wen wrote on Twitter: "In Taiwan, #LoveWins." On the first day, 526 same-sex couples registered their marriages.

Two signatures. One facing four hundred years of historical wounds, the other facing millennia of social taboo. Both drew massive backlash. The apology was criticized as "only words without action"; the same-sex marriage law was opposed in a referendum. But the signatures had already fallen.

8.17 Million Votes

In the 2020 presidential election, Tsai Ing-wen received 8.17 million votes — a 57.1% vote share — the highest total in Taiwan's presidential election history.⁶

The turning point of that election was not in Taiwan, but in Hong Kong. The 2019 anti-extradition movement gave Taiwanese voters a direct view of what "one country, two systems" could lead to. Tsai's campaign shifted from domestic affairs to sovereignty, and the sentence she kept repeating became the definition of the election: "Taiwan's future will be decided by 23 million people."

That same year, COVID-19 broke out. Taiwan's epidemic prevention performance in the early stages of the pandemic — the mask rationing system, the contact tracing app, more than 200 days of zero domestic transmission — was called the "Taiwan Model" by international media.¹⁰

However, in May 2021, a domestic outbreak erupted, and vaccine procurement delays triggered severe criticism. "Getting ahead of the curve" went from a compliment to a punchline.

The Taiwan Strait Pressure Cooker

During Tsai Ing-wen's eight years in power, military pressure in the Taiwan Strait grew exponentially.

In August 2022, U.S. House Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan.¹¹ China's response was military exercises encircling Taiwan — the PLA fired eleven ballistic missiles, five of which landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone. Throughout 2022, the PLA crossed the Taiwan Strait median line 564 times, twenty-four times the combined total of all previous years.⁹

Tsai's strategy was: no provocation, no retreat. She did not declare independence, and she did not accept the 1992 Consensus. She bought weapons, strengthened reserve mobilization, and deepened informal relations with the United States and Japan. This was a nameless state — neither unification nor independence, but making Taiwan continue to exist in the gap between.

When Leaving

On May 20, 2024, Tsai Ing-wen left office. Her vice president, Lai Ching-te, had won the election in January of that year — this was the first time the DPP had won three consecutive presidential elections, unprecedented in Taiwan's democratic history.¹²

She was named twice to TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People (2016, 2020).¹³ After leaving office, she visited Lithuania, Denmark, and the United Kingdom as a private citizen.

She raised two cats — Tsai Hsiang-hsiang (a grey tabby rescued after a typhoon in 2012) and Tsai A-tsai (an orange cat found in Taitung in 2015).¹⁴ She has never married. During the 2016 election campaign, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency published a commentary insinuating that "unmarried women are emotionally unstable" — widely condemned as sexist.¹⁴

Tsai Ing-wen spent eight years proving one thing: a scholar-type politician who is not good at giving speeches, not fond of handshaking, and who dislikes appearing on television, can, in an era when populism has swept the globe, govern a country through the power of law and institutions. What she left behind is not only policy — it is evidence: quiet can also be a leadership style.

Further Reading:

• Taiwan's Democratic Transition — The institutional evolution from authoritarianism to freedom
• Lai Ching-te — Tsai Ing-wen's successor, Taiwan's current president
• Same-Sex Marriage and Gender Equality in Taiwan — The legislative process of Asia's first same-sex marriage law
• Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples History and Naming Rights Movement — From "mountain compatriots" to "indigenous peoples"
• Sunflower Movement — The 2014 social movement that reshaped Taiwan's political landscape
• Chou Tzu-yu — The 90-second apology video on the eve of the 2016 election was the triggering event for Tsai's victory speech "no one needs to apologize for their identity"

References