Chen Shui-bian (redirected from Chen Shuibian)

Chen Shui-bian, 1951–, Taiwanese political leader, president of Taiwan (2000–). Born into poverty, he obtained his law degree from National Taiwan Univ. in 1975 and practiced as a maritime lawyer. During the 1980s he became involved in the dissident movement against the long-ruling Kuomintang (KMT; Nationalist party), entering politics as a Taipei city councilor in 1981. In 1987 Chen joined the newly legalized opposition Democratic Progressive party (DPP), quickly becoming a leader of the group. He won a legislative seat in 1989 and later (1994–98) served as mayor of Taipei. In 2000 he was elected president in a three-way race, succeeding Lee Teng-hui and ending more than 50 years of KMT rule. The DPP did not control the legislature, however, restricting Chen's ability to enact reforms. Chen had long called for Taiwan's formal independence from China, a step the mainland has said would lead to military action, but moderated his position prior to the campaign. The issue, nonetheless, remained a source of tension with China, as Chen has continued to support such a move during his terms president. He was reelected in 2004; in the final days of the campaign he was wounded in an assassination attempt that opposition leaders accused him of staging. In the second half of 2006 a series of corruption accusations and indictments against Chen and his family led KMT legislators to attempt to remove Chen from office three times, but each time the party failed to achieve the two-thirds vote required to do so.

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Chen Shui-bian

(born Feb. 18, 1951, Tainan county, Taiwan) President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000. Chen studied law at National Taiwan University and later became one of the island's leading attorneys. After unsuccessfully defending protesters who opposed the ruling Nationalist Party, he became linked with the opposition movement, and in the mid-1980s he was jailed on charges of libeling a Nationalist official. He subsequently joined the Democratic Progressive Party and became a prominent member of the movement to establish Taiwan's independence. He served in Taiwan's legislature (1989–94) before being elected mayor of Taipei in 1994. Although he did not win reelection in 1998, the loss freed him to run for president in 2000, and he defeated the Nationalist Party's candidate, ending that party's 55-year rule of Taiwan. In 2004 Chen was narrowly reelected, the vote coming one day after he and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu (Lu Hsiu-lien), were shot and slightly wounded while campaigning in Tainan.