Chen Shui-bian

30-Second Overview: Chen Shui-bian is the most complex symbol of Taiwan's democratic transition. Born into a tenant farmer family in Tainan, he rose to become a top-tier lawyer through legal talent, entering politics during the Formosa Incident trial. Elected Mayor of Taipei in 1994, he transformed "government offices" into service halls; in 2000, he ended 55 years of KMT rule with 39.3% of the vote, establishing three major legal foundations: the Referendum Act, the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, and the Gender Equality Education Act; joined the WTO in 2002; and was re-elected by a margin of 0.22% after the 2004 shooting incident. His second term was engulfed by the State Opera Fund and Longtan land purchase cases. After leaving office in 2008, he became the first former President of the Republic of China to be imprisoned and sentenced. Released on medical parole in 2015, he remains so to this day. He personally made "party rotation is possible" a norm in Taiwan's democracy, while also leading society into the red-green polarization that remains unhealed today.

On the night of March 18, 2000, Taipei streets were crowded with people. A lawyer from a tenant farmer family in rural Tainan, who had completed his law studies at National Taiwan University on scholarships, had just ended the Kuomintang's 55-year rule in Taiwan with 39.3% of the vote. Standing on the stage, Chen Shui-bian shouted, "Taiwan stands up!" This was not just the end of an election, but for the first time in half a century, Taiwanese people used their votes to show the world: power can be transferred peacefully.

The Child of a Tenant Farmer

On October 12, 1950, in Xizhuang Village, Guantian Township, Tainan County. His father, Chen Song-gen, was a level-three poor household, surviving as a tenant farmer and laborer. Chen Shui-bian later described his childhood, saying he did homework lying on the floor, borrowing light from the window, because he was reluctant to turn on the lights. ¹

He graduated with excellent grades from the Taiwan Provincial Tainan First Middle School and graduated from the Judicial Group of the Department of Law at National Taiwan University in 1974. In 1973, during his junior year, he passed the lawyer qualification exam, standing out under the extremely low acceptance rate at the time. After graduation, he established the Maritime Law Office, serving as a consultant for companies such as Evergreen Marine Corporation, becoming a successful lawyer.

📝 Curator's Note
Chen Shui-bian's legal background made him highly value "procedure" and "rule of law," a trait that later manifested in his administration as rapid revision of regulations—supporters saw efficiency, while critics saw "manipulation." This tension ran through his entire political career.

The Choice in the Formosa Incident

In late 1979, the Formosa Incident shook the entire island. Non-partisan movement figures held a Human Rights Day rally in Kaohsiung, which was suppressed by military and police. Key figures such as Huang Hsin-chieh were arrested and faced high-pressure trials.

Chen Shui-bian was 29 years old that year, already a lawyer with a good reputation. When defense lawyer Chang Te-ming approached him, asking if he was willing to join the defense team to represent Huang Hsin-chieh, he clearly understood what this meant: standing up for "political prisoners" under martial law rule meant betting his career and safety.

He chose to join. This decision transformed him from a legal professional to a political figure, and in the subsequent circle of defense lawyers, he met Hsieh Chang-ting and Su Tseng-chang—who later became important figures in the democratic movement. Among the 15 lawyers in the defense team at the time, he was not the only core member, but this shared experience pushed him completely from a "maritime lawyer" into the non-partisan movement.

In 1981, Chen Shui-bian was elected as a Taipei City Councilor with the highest number of votes, making his debut. In 1986, he became a founding member of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Mayor of Taipei: Turning Government Offices into Service Halls

In December 1994, Chen Shui-bian defeated the last appointed KMT Mayor, Huang Ta-chou, in the first direct election for Mayor of Taipei with 615,090 votes (43.67% of the vote), becoming the first directly elected Mayor of Taipei in history and the first DPP mayor. ²

He served for four years. His most concrete legacy was not hardware, but the destructive reshaping of "civil service culture."

At that time, government agencies were known as "yamen" (ancient government offices). The counters in household registration offices were usually over 125 cm high, forcing citizens to stand or even look up at civil servants. Chen Shui-bian ordered the counters to be lowered to 70 cm, achieving "sitting service" where citizens and civil servants sat at the same level, and implemented a "smiling tea service" model. This conceptual shift from "managing people" to "serving people" earned the Taipei City Government ISO international certification and attracted NHK to produce a special report.

To eradicate laziness and absenteeism, he personally led media "surprise inspections" of various city government units multiple times, strictly assessing "deadwood" civil servants caught drinking tea, reading newspapers, or being absent. The concept that "civil servants are public servants" had its first concrete execution.

📝 Mayor of Taipei Term (1994-1998) Key Achievements

Transportation and Construction: The Taipei Metro Muzha Line opened in March 1996, becoming the first metro line in Taiwan to open for service. The Taipei 101 Building established the BOT development model during his term, marking the first major case of the BOT system in Taiwan.

Municipal Reform: Promoted mandatory garbage classification and recycling; swept away special industries; ISO-certified service-oriented bureaucratic reform; political cosplay dressed as Superman, Michael Jackson, and Peter Pan, opening a new era of Taiwan's political marketing.

Political Brand: The 1998 "Bian Hat" merchandise turned political support into a fashion trend, a turning point in Taiwan's election culture.

Social Welfare Innovation: Promoted welfare services for disadvantaged groups, including local service plans for the elderly and people with disabilities.

In 1998, Chen Shui-bian sought re-election with an 80% citizen satisfaction rate but lost to challenger Ma Ying-jeou with 45.91% of the vote. Under normal election logic, a mayor with 80% satisfaction should not lose. Political scholars' later analysis pointed to the structural blue-green gap in Taipei voters—not that his administration was poor, but that the structure was inherently so.

Losing Taipei did not stop him from winning all of Taiwan two years later.

2000: The First Time in 55 Years

The 2000 Presidential Election was the most dramatic election in Taiwan's democratic history.

The KMT split internally: the party-nominated Lien Chan and the defector Song Chu-yu ran separately, splitting the pan-blue vote. Chen Shui-bian, paired with Vice Presidential candidate Liu Hsiu-lien, won with 39.3% of the vote in a three-way contest. The DPP went from founding to governing in just 14 years. ³

📊 2000 Presidential Election Results

Candidate	Party	Votes	Vote Share
Chen Shui-bian	Democratic Progressive Party	4,977,697	39.30%
Song Chu-yu	Independent	4,664,972	36.84%
Lien Chan	Kuomintang	2,925,513	23.10%

Source: Central Election Commission

In his inaugural address, Chen Shui-bian proposed the "Four No's and One Without":

1. No declaration of independence
2. No change of national name
3. No promotion of the Two-State Theory into the Constitution
4. No promotion of a referendum on unification or independence
5. No issue of abolishing the National Unification Council

This was a cautious opening, attempting to find a starting point in a highly polarized political atmosphere.

This party rotation was defined by later political scientists as a key moment of Taiwan's democratic consolidation: before this, elections had been open, but party rotation had never occurred; after 2000, "parties can rotate" became a concrete fact of Taiwan's democracy.

First Term: Foundation of Human Rights and Democratic Legislation

Chen Shui-bian's first term faced a "small president, large opposition" legislature—the DPP did not hold a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so policy advancement relied on cross-party negotiation. Despite this, these four years left several important legislations in Taiwan's legal history.

In 2002, Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Completed under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu," strengthening Taiwan's position under global trade rules and providing a legal framework for connecting Taiwan's industries to international supply chains.

In 2003, the Referendum Act was passed. This was the first referendum law in Taiwan's history, establishing the legal foundation for direct democracy. Previously, Taiwan had no citizen referendum system; the passage of the Referendum Act allowed the mechanism for people to directly express their will on major policies to enter the law for the first time, viewed by democratization researchers as the starting point of Taiwan's institutionalized direct democracy. ⁴

In 2004, the Gender Equality Education Act was passed. Required all levels of schools to establish gender equality education mechanisms, prohibited gender discrimination, and established complaint systems. This was a milestone in the legalization of gender equality in Taiwan's campuses.

In 2005, the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act was passed. It is the most important foundational legislation for protecting indigenous peoples' rights in Taiwan. It established the legal status of indigenous peoples' traditional territories, guaranteed collective autonomy of language, culture, and education, providing a legal framework for Taiwan's indigenous policies, completing legislation after years of advocacy. ⁵

📝 Key Human Rights Legislation of the First Term (2000–2004)

The legislations passed during Chen Shui-bian's first term laid several foundations in Taiwan's legal history:

• 2003 Referendum Act: Taiwan's first referendum law, establishing a direct democracy mechanism.
• 2004 Gender Equality Education Act: The legal basis for campus gender equality systems.
• 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Act: The fundamental law establishing the collective rights of indigenous peoples.
• 2007 Amendment of the Indigenous Peoples Education Act: Strengthened educational guarantees for indigenous languages and cultures.

Coupled with broader WTO accession (2002), militarization of the military, government information disclosure, history curriculum adjustments, and multi-language policies—the focus of this term's administration was "completing Taiwan's institutional framework from a semi-finished product at the end of authoritarianism to what a democratic nation should look like."

The promotion of military nationalization and civilian leadership was a less frequently mentioned but extremely important contribution to democratic consolidation in Chen Shui-bian's administration. Before him, the KMT's influence penetrated every layer of the military chain of command; after him, the term "party army" completely exited public discourse.

Taiwan Naming Movement

Starting in 2003, the Chen Shui-bian administration promoted a series of "Taiwan Naming Movements," changing the names of some state-owned institutions:

• "China Post" renamed "Taiwan Post"
• "Chung Cheng International Airport" renamed "Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport"
• Passport cover "TAIWAN" text enlarged

Supporters believed this was a necessary step to make Taiwan clearly identifiable internationally; opponents believed the renaming actions provoked Beijing and intensified cross-strait tensions. Some of these naming changes were continued by subsequent governments, while others were changed again.

During the eight-year term of governance, the percentage of people identifying as Taiwanese rose from about 30% to 70%. Chen Shui-bian personally promoted these identity projects, making the perception that "Taiwan is a sovereign state" mainstream—this also plunged Taiwanese society into a stance division that remains difficult to heal today.

Cross-Strait Discourse: One Country on Each Side

In 2002, Chen Shui-bian proposed "Taiwan, China, one country on each side" in a video speech, explicitly declaring that Taiwan and China are two different countries. This discourse contrasted with the cautious wording of his inauguration "Four No's," triggering a strong reaction from Beijing and causing concern in the United States regarding the situation in the Taiwan Strait.

In the later part of his second term, he further proposed the "Four Needs and One Without": need for independence, need for renaming, need for a new constitution, need for development, without issues of left-right ideological lines. He simultaneously promoted the "Taiwan UN Referendum." Diplomatically, there were controversies over "detour diplomacy," and arrangements for transiting the United States became tense with Washington.

The cross-strait path he promoted—centered on Taiwan's subjectivity, emphasizing Taiwan's independent existence internationally—forms the most distinct contrast in cross-strait policy with the "Nine-Point Consensus" path of his successor, Ma Ying-jeou. Different voters have entirely different evaluations of this history, reflecting the reality that Taiwanese society has not yet fully consolidated a consensus on the fundamental question of "what Taiwan is."

2004 Re-election: The Gunshot Before the Vote

On March 19, 2004, the day before voting, Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Liu Hsiu-lien were shot while canvassing in Tainan, both sustaining minor injuries. The following day, Chen Shui-bian was successfully re-elected with 50.11% of the vote, a margin of 0.22%. ⁶

The investigation process of the shooting incident was full of controversies and has not been fully clarified to this day. The opposition questioned the event's impact on the election and demanded a recount; supporters viewed it as an attempted political assassination. Taiwanese society's interpretation of this event remains split along political lines, making it one of the few political events in modern Taiwan's history where the truth is still controversial.

Second Term: Political Storm

2006 was the turning point of the second term. The use of the State Opera Fund was questioned, and corruption cases involving close associates emerged (including the SOGO case and the Longtan land purchase case). Former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-teh launched the "One Million People Anti-Bian" demonstration movement, gathering for weeks on the Ketagalan Boulevard, demanding Chen Shui-bian's resignation.

This political storm nearly brought Chen Shui-bian's administration to a standstill and left a deep mark of social polarization in Taiwan. Concurrently, the Peace Hospital quarantine incident during the 2003 SARS epidemic was another cross-term crisis management mark.

But even amidst the storm, major public construction was completed or launched during this term:

• Xueshan Tunnel (opened in 2006)
• Taiwan High Speed Rail (fully opened in 2007)
• Development of the Central Science Park
• Keelung River remediation
• Kaohsiung Metro

📝 Curator's Note
Chen Shui-bian's second term is a typical case where Taiwan's public discussion "cannot be evaluated separately": the same term had the strongest cross-strait identity discourse, the most serious corruption storm, and the largest scale of infrastructure delivery. Any single framework (success/failure, progress/corruption) would miss half the truth of this term.

Post-Resignation Judicial Cases

On May 20, 2008, Chen Shui-bian resigned. Two months later, prosecutors launched an investigation. In 2009, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the first instance for crimes such as embezzlement and money laundering. The case was finally settled in the third instance regarding the Longtan land purchase case—Chen Shui-bian became the first former President of the Republic of China to be imprisoned and sentenced. The case involved members of the First Family (Wu Shu-zhen, Chao Chien-ming, etc.) and has long been a focal point in discussions of Taiwan's judicial independence and political interference.

In January 2015, he was granted medical parole on health grounds, remaining in a state of medical parole since then.

His supporters have always argued that the judicial process was flawed and that the case was mixed with political persecution factors; critics believe the court's judgment was the normal operation of Taiwan's rule of law. This case has become a continuously cited example in discussions of Taiwan's judicial independence.

Digital Era's "Bian-style Vitality": Meme Interaction on Threads

In recent years, Chen Shui-bian has shown amazing digital adaptability. He interacts very frequently with netizens on Threads, earning the nickname "Presidential-level Hell Meme King" from netizens.

In April 2026, when responding to a netizen's question about "the coolest thing in life" on Threads, he bluntly stated, "Becoming a mayor before the age of 50 as a level-three poor person, becoming president before the age of 50," attracting massive interaction in a short time. When a netizen jokingly asked if the account was operated by a staff member, he directly showed his phone and self-deprecated about past "smear" incidents—this "self-contained meme" style unexpectedly attracted a large number of young generations who had not experienced his presidency. ⁷

From the counterattack of a level-three poor household, to the challenger in the authoritarian era, to the prisoner深陷 in corruption cases, and finally to the meme symbol in the social media era—his trajectory compresses all the twists and turns of Taiwan's democratic transition into a single body.

What Remains

Evaluating Chen Shui-bian, people from different standpoints will reach entirely different conclusions. But there are several things that are concretely verifiable:

A Referendum Act gave people a legal tool for direct democracy. An Indigenous Peoples Basic Act gave a marginalized ethnic group for centuries the first legal guarantee of collective rights. A Gender Equality Education Act gave clear norms for campus gender equality. The Taipei Metro Muzha Line opened during his term as Mayor. Taiwan joined the WTO during his presidency. The Xueshan Tunnel and Taiwan High Speed Rail opened during his presidency. Military nationalization became a fact during his term.

More fundamentally, what he established in 2000 was this: In Taiwan, a party that had governed for 55 years can be voted out of office.

In that year, Taiwanese people first knew that this was true.

Further Reading

• Su Tseng-chang — Formosa Incident trial defense team partner, later Premier
• Hsieh Chang-ting — Formosa Incident trial defense team partner, later Premier
• Liu Hsiu-lien — Vice President 2000 / 2004
• Shih Ming-teh — Main figure in the Formosa Incident, later DPP Chairman, initiator of the 2006 Anti-Bian movement
• Ma Ying-jeou — Defeated Chen Shui-bian to become Mayor of Taipei in 1998, succeeded as President in 2008
• Formosa Incident — The 1979 trial spawned a new generation of politicians
• Democratic Progressive Party — Founding member, first ruling party President
• Taiwan Democratization Process — Party rotation as a key node in democratic consolidation

References

⚠️ This article's footnotes need subsequent detailed refinement: The original PR submission version contained 20 root URLs (such as drnh.gov.tw / gov.taipei / nhk.or.jp) that did not point to specific pages, and has been replaced with 7 verified sources from the existing version. The next round of polish should add: (1) specific report sources for the Bazan Stream incident / Nuclear Four suspension / First Financial Reform; (2) specific pages of Taipei City Government or news reports for the "Smiling Tea Service + 70 cm Counter + ISO + NHK" reform; (3) court judgment citations for the State Opera Fund / SOGO case / Longtan land purchase case; (4) specific post URLs and news sources for the Threads interaction section.