Chen Shui-bian

Chen Shui-bian (Traditional Chinese: 陳水扁, Simplified Chinese: 陈水扁, pinyin: Chén Shuǐbiǎn, Tongyong pinyin: Chén Shuǐ-biǎn, Southern Min: Tân Chúi-píⁿ), n. in Tainan in 1950, he was the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from May 20, 2000 to May 20, 2008. Reelected in the 2004 elections, he left office at the end of his second term, in the year 2008, due to the constitutional limitation of two mandates.

Popularly known as A-bian (阿扁, Ābiǎn), his rise to power, as a Democratic Progressive Party (PDP, Chen Shui-bian) candidate, ended more than fifty years of government of the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang party in Taiwan. The PPD is the main party of the Pan-Green Alliance, the coalition of parties identified with the ideology of Taiwanese independence. Although since he came to power, he has softened the pro-independence character of his public statements, showing himself to be conciliatory towards his political opponents and towards the People's Republic of China (PRC), his figure has been widely attacked by defenders of Chinese reunification, especially in the PRC, where the media regularly refer to him in highly derogatory language.

Chen Shui-bian is an Honorary Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Childhood and youth

Born into a humble family in the town of Kuantien in Tainan County at the end of 1950, his birth certificate was issued a few months later, on February 18, 1951, probably because his state of health suggested at first he would not survive.

In June 1969, he entered National Taiwan University. Although he began studying Business Administration, he soon left these studies to pursue a law degree. In 1974, he earned his bachelor's degree in business law with the highest marks of his class.

In 1975, he married Wu Shu-chen, with whom he has had a daughter, currently a dentist, and a son who also graduated with a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 2005.^{[citation required]}

Between 1976 and 1989, Chen worked as a lawyer for an insurance company, specializing in maritime law.

Political career

Chen first became involved in Taiwanese politics in 1980 when he defended those involved in the Kaohsiung incident before a military court. Although all eight implicated, including leading opposition dissident Huang Hsin-chieh and current ROC Vice President Annette Lu, were found guilty, Chen became known for his rhetorical skill, and began to participate in Taiwanese politics as a member of the movement of the dǎngwài (黨外, "outsiders of the party"), the dissidents who defended the need to establish political formations outside the then party single Kuomintang (KMT).

Representing this dǎngwài movement, Chen ran as an independent candidate in the Taipei City Council elections, becoming a councilor from 1981 to 1985. During this period, in 1984, he founded a association of opponents of the KMT<>, which would publish the magazine Neo-Formosa.

On January 12, 1985, Chen was sentenced to one year in prison for libel for an article published in Neo-Formosa about Elmer Feng, a Kuomintang professor of philosophy. Although he had not written the article himself, Chen was the editor of the magazine and thus responsible for its content. While the sentence was appealed, he returned to Tainan to stand in the November 1985 county magistrate election. chen was hit by a truck. Wu Shu-chen became a paraplegic due to the accident. A fairly widespread theory in Taiwan states that the outrage would have been deliberate, as part of an intimidation campaign by the KMT government.

Chen's appeal against his conviction was denied in May 1986 and he had to spend eight months in Tucheng Penitentiary along with Huang Tien-fu and Lee Yi-yang, the other two accused in the same case. During her time in prison, her wife Wu Shu-chen stood in the legislative elections and was elected a deputy in the Legislative Yuan, the lower house of the ROC parliament.

After his release from prison, Chen returned to practicing law while continuing his political activities with his wife. In 1989 Chen was elected to the Legislative Yuan deputy, where, with the support of KMT deputies, he would serve on the National Defense Committee. Chen took part in founding the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and moderated some of the party's positions on the party's pro-independence principles.

Reelected as a deputy in 1992, Chen would resign from his post in 1994 to become mayor of the capital, Taipei.

Taipei City Hall

Chen was elected mayor of Taipei in 1994, largely thanks to a split in the pro-KMT vote between the party's candidate and the one presented by the New Party, a splinter of the KMT. Due to the inexperience of Chen Shui-bian's team and his collaborators, many senior KMT officials in the mayor's office retained their posts.

During his tenure, Chen organized campaigns to crack down on gambling and prostitution rings in Taipei. He was also responsible for changing the names of many streets in the city, dropping names associated with China and the Kuomintang in favor of names associated with Taiwan.

In the 1998 municipal elections, Chen failed to be re-elected. Despite getting more votes than in previous elections, KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou received the support of traditional KMT voters, including a large part of those who had supported the New Party four years earlier. After losing the mayoralty, Chen Shui-bian devoted himself to his activities as a leader of the PPD, and in the year 2000 he ran as a candidate for his party in the presidential elections.

Presidency

The result of the 2000 presidential election was similar to the one that had brought him to the mayoralty of Taipei years before. A division between two factions of the KMT meant that, against the official candidate of the party, Lien Chan, James Soong, who had disputed the leadership of the KMT, also presented himself as an independent. Thus, the traditionally pro-KMT vote was split between supporters of Lien Chan and those of James Soong, allowing Chen Shui-bian to win the presidency with just 39% of the vote.

His relatively weak electoral support and the fact that, as had already happened to him in the Taipei mayor's office, most of the senior officials in the ministries were pro-KMT, led Chen to adopt a conciliatory policy that It marked a notable increase in his popularity. Thus, he appointed Tang Fei, a conservative KMT politician of mainland Chinese origin, as prime minister. In addition, he softened his pro-independence stance with his promise that he would not seek a formal declaration of independence or modify the ROC's national symbols as long as the PRC did not attack Taiwan.

Relationship with the opposition

Chen found his policies directly opposed from the beginning by the Legislative Yuan, where the Pan-Blue Alliance (opposed to Taiwanese independence) had a large majority. This situation of tension between the executive and legislative powers paralyzed many political decisions and had negative effects on the economy, with a notable rise in unemployment, which would reach 4.5%, as well as a fall of around 50% of the Taipei Stock Exchange.

One of the biggest conflicts between the Chen Shui-bian administration and the opposition involved plans to build a new nuclear power plant. The PPD had promised in its electoral program to cancel the construction of the facilities, for which contracts had already been signed with companies affiliated with the KMT. In the end, a court decision sided with parliament on this issue and Chen was unable to prevent the construction of the new plant.

As his term wore on, Chen moved away from his initial conciliatory gestures, adopting a more openly pro-independence stance.

Taiwanese independence movement

Chen Shui-bian's ideological position regarding his adherence to Taiwanese independence and his interpretation of this ideology is shrouded in some ambiguity. Chen has always maintained that the ROC is an independent Taiwanese state whose territorial claim to mainland China is now only a vestige of the past. In this sense, Taiwan would not need to declare itself independent because it already is. However, on the substantive questions of whether the constitution should be changed to establish a Taiwanese identity for the state, or whether reunification with mainland China should be kept as a long-term goal, the remarks by Chen, caught among the most radical section of his party and his institutional responsibility have always been imprecise. Since he has been head of state, he has never publicly defended Taiwan's formal independence, but he has advocated for the right of Taiwanese to freely choose their future, a statement that many consider a subtle way of expressing their desire for that definitive and formalized independence. of the island. The government of the People's Republic has always been highly critical of Chen, whom he has accused on several occasions of seeking to break China's territorial integrity.

Despite multiple problems and their declining popularity in opinion polls, in the March 20, 2004 presidential election, Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu won re-election for a second term, with an advantage less than 30,000 votes out of a total of 12.9 million votes cast. In addition to the narrow margin, which led opposition candidate Lien Chan of the KMT to call for a vote recount, the election was marked by controversy due to the confusing incident the day before the election, when Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu were allegedly wounded by gunfire while participating in a campaign event in the city of Tainan. That day, while they were traveling in an open-top car greeting their supporters, gunshots rang out and both Chen and Lu had to be hospitalized. The circumstances of the incident have never been clear and have been the subject of all kinds of rumors and conspiracy theories. Chen Shui-bian's political opponents made the accusation that it had all been a pretense to win the sympathy of the electorate.

Reelection

Following his re-election, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the People's Republic of China issued a public statement three days before his inauguration on May 17, accusing Chen of pursuing a separatist-oriented policy, reiterating that the consequences would be very serious if there was any progress towards formal independence for the island. Along with this threat to use force, the Beijing authorities also offered a series of concessions in the event that Chen Shui-bian publicly recognized the One China Principle.

For his second term, which officially began on May 20, 2004, Chen intended to promote his idea of reforming the ROC constitution (which dates back to 1947, when the ROC was the mainland regime Chinese). Debate over how to define the state in a new constitution, and threats by the PRC government to use force if the ROC authorities moved towards formal independence from Taiwan, have paralyzed these reform efforts.

Last years

On December 14, 2004, Chen resigned as president of his party, assuming the disappointing results in the legislative elections, which again left parliament with a majority of the Panazul Alliance. The results of the legislative elections prevented Chen Shui-bian from gaining the parliamentary support he would have needed to carry out many of his plans, and the political gridlock that characterized his first term has spilled over into his second.

During 2005, Chen became the first ROC president to visit Europe, when he attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican City (the Holy See diplomatically recognizes the ROC, something that no European state does). The visit to the Vatican posed diplomatic difficulties, since Chen had to fly to Rome and through Italian territory, a country that recognizes the People's Republic of China. On this occasion, the People's Republic of China did not hinder the visit and Chen Shui-bian was able to attend the funeral.

Chen Shui-bian handed over the command of President of the Republic of China to his successor Ma Ying-jeou on May 20, 2008.

Prison sentence

Since he left the presidency, he has been investigated by the Taiwan justice system as a suspect in the crime of money laundering.

On the morning of Wednesday, November 12, 2008, the Taipei Court ordered former president Chen Shui-bian's pretrial detention with the right to defense after being detained by the Taipei Prosecutor's Office on the night of November 11. The former president is indicted on charges of corruption, money laundering, bribery taking, and document forgery and could receive a minimum sentence of 5 years.

On September 11, 2009, he was sentenced to life in prison for corruption, but on June 11, 2010, his sentence was reduced to 20 years in prison.

Predecessor: Lee Teng-hui

President of the Republic of China 2000-2008

Successor: Ma Ying-jeou