Lai Ching-te

Lai Ching-te (born October 6, 1959, New Taipei City, Wanli District, Taiwan) is the president of Taiwan. He is known for being a vocal supporter of Taiwan’s sovereignty and for his rise from poverty to the upper echelons of Taiwan’s government leadership. He has previously served as a legislator (1999–2010), mayor of Tainan (2010–17), and Taiwan’s premier (2017–19) and vice president (2020–24).

Early life and career

Lai is one of six children born in poverty to a coal-mining family. After his father died from carbon monoxide poisoning when Lai was two years old, his mother raised Lai and his siblings alone. As Lai recalled in a 2023 Time interview, “One of the biggest assets my father left me was being impoverished. Because in this environment, I worked harder, more vigorously on everything I did. It gave me a sense of determination.” To fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a doctor, Lai earned medical degrees from National Taiwan University’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (1983) and National Cheng Kung University (1991).

While attending college, serving in the military, and practicing as a physician for a few years, Lai witnessed Taiwan’s political transformation as the country shifted away from the historically authoritarian rule of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) toward democracy. During this period of political turmoil, thousands of pro-democracy activists were persecuted, and, while campaigning for the presidency in 2023, Lai recalled that time, saying that he had been “full of doubts and concerns for the future of this country.” He first became involved with politics while serving as chief resident at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, when in 1994 he was head of a Tainan physicians’ association that supported the gubernatorial candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

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Entering politics

Shortly after the gubernatorial candidate lost the election, several pro-democracy activists asked Lai to run for office. Because of his desire to continue to practice medicine, he initially declined their request, but Lai eventually decided to seek election and won a seat in the National Assembly in 1996. Lai stated that his primary motivation for doing so was the rising regional tensions resulting from China’s launch of a missile toward Taiwan earlier that year, which he described as a “defining moment.” China’s military exercises were widely seen as an attempt at voter intimidation during Taiwan’s first free presidential election that year.

In 1998 Lai won election to the Legislative Yuan as a representative for Tainan City, and during his time in office he gained popularity for his role in social welfare and medical matters as a member of the legislature’s bipartisan Health, Welfare and Environment Foundation and Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee. He also lobbied several countries—including the United States and Japan—for Taiwan’s membership in the World Health Organization. While serving as a legislator, he received a Master of Public Health degree (2003) from Harvard University. Lai was named best legislator by Citizen Congress Watch, and, in all, he was elected to four consecutive terms in the Legislative Yuan, serving until 2010.

Lai continued his political career as mayor of Tainan from 2010 to 2017. In the 2014 mayoral election, he garnered about 73 percent of the vote, the highest percentage for a candidate in any county or city election since the lifting of martial law in 1987. As Tainan’s mayor, Lai gained experience in diplomacy, including promoting exchanges and sister-city agreements with Japan as well as meeting with officials from the U.S. State Department and National Security Council to discuss regional security. He played an essential role in the DPP’s New Tide faction, which sought to add a clause about Taiwanese independence to the party charter.

In 2017 Lai was appointed premier of Taiwan. That same year he described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence,” a statement that critics in China repeatedly have cited as proof of his “provocative” ideologies. Lai later explained that he had only been advocating for de facto independence from China, because it was in line with the DPP’s sovereignty efforts at the time.

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In the 2018 local elections the DPP suffered significant losses, which propelled Lai to step down as premier and challenge the incumbent, Tsai Ing-wen, in the 2019 presidential primary. Lai lost to Tsai by about 8 percent; however, in November Lai accepted Tsai’s invitation to be her vice presidential running mate for the presidential election in 2020. The Tsai-Lai alliance showcased the DPP’s unity, and Tsai successfully secured her second term as president. In May 2020 Lai was sworn in as vice president. Lai was elected chair of the DPP in January 2023—an effort to revamp the party after it lost local elections to the KMT in November 2022. After assuming office as the party’s chair, Lai stated that there was no need to declare independence because Taiwan already had de facto independence.

Presidency

As he was completing his vice presidential term, Lai again decided to run for president—a move that was widely expected. Tsai Ing-wen, who could not run again because of term limits, endorsed Lai in July 2023. When candidate Lai advocated for maintaining the status quo of de facto independence from China, the Chinese government responded by labeling him a “complete troublemaker.” During the run-up to the election, Chinese spy balloons, similar to those shot down by the U.S. military over the United States in 2023, were seen over Taiwan, which some experts viewed as a warning from China in the high-stakes election. Because of China’s increasingly assertive role in regional affairs, the election garnered global media attention. Despite being vocal about Taiwan’s independence in the past, Lai stated during his campaign that he hoped Taiwan could foster positive relations with China. Younger Taiwanese voters, who had been supportive of the DPP in the past, expressed concerns about the island’s economic situation, which drove some of them toward the newer Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) instead.

On January 13, 2024, Lai won the presidential election. The victory marked the first time since Taiwan’s transition to democracy that any political party had won three consecutive presidential elections. Lai received approximately 40 percent of the total vote, compared with 33.5 percent for Hou Yu-ih, the opposition KMT candidate, who was seen as sympathetic to more amicable relations with Beijing, and 26.5 percent for Ko Wen-je of the TPP. Notwithstanding its triumph in the presidential election, the DPP claimed only about 45 percent of the total vote in the parliamentary elections and failed to maintain its majority in the legislature. Because no party claimed a parliamentary majority, political observers suggested that Lai would likely encounter legislative roadblocks. Several days after the victory, Lai left the New Tide faction to promote national unity.

Among the countries that congratulated Lai for his win were the United States, Singapore, and the Philippines. However, China was quick to condemn these messages as violations of the “one China” policy. Before the elections, China had branded Lai as a “destroyer of peace” because of his ideological commitment to Taiwanese sovereignty. In contrast, Lai stated that the results of the presidential election represented a “victory for the community of democracies” and that in the contest between democracy and authoritarianism, Taiwan had chosen to stand on the “side of democracy.”

Lai Ching-te was inaugurated as the president of Taiwan on May 20, 2024. In his inaugural address Lai emphasized his intention to preserve Taiwan’s peace with China while simultaneously deepening ties with fellow democracies and strengthening Taiwan’s defensive capabilities. His speech was quickly denounced by both the Chinese and Russian governments. The Chinese government office for Taiwanese affairs accused Lai of “inciting antagonism and confrontation across the strait,” and Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated, “We see that Washington and its satellites continue to escalate the situation in the Taiwan Strait, purposefully undermine stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region, and hinder the peaceful unification of China.”