Tsai Ing-wen is a Tawainese politician and the President of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan. Tsai is the second president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tsai is also the first woman elected to the office. She is also the first president to be of both Hakka and aboriginal descent (a quarter Paiwan from her grandmother), the first unmarried president, the first to have never held an elected executive post before presidency, and the first to be popularly elected without having previously served as the Mayor of Taipei (the capital city of Taiwan). She is the incumbent Chair of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and was the party's presidential candidate in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Tsai previously served as party chair from 2008 to 2012.

Tsai studied law and international trade, and became a university professor after she earned a master's degree in the United States (Cornell University) and then her Ph.D. in the United Kingdom (LSE). In 1993, as an Independent (without party affiliation), she was appointed to a series of governmental positions, including trade negotiator for WTO affairs, by the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and was one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine of then President Lee Teng-hui.

After DPP President Chen Shui-bian took office in 2000, Tsai served as Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council throughout Chen's first term as a non-partisan. She joined DPP in 2004 and served briefly as a DPP-nominated at-large member of the Legislative Yuan. From there, she was appointed Vice Premier under Premier Su Tseng-chang until the cabinet's mass resignation in 2007. She was elected and assumed DPP leadership in 2008, following her party's defeat in the 2008 presidential election. She resigned as chair after losing her 2012 presidential election bid.

Tsai ran for New Taipei City mayorship in the November 2010 municipal elections but was defeated by another former vice premier, Eric Chu (KMT). In April 2011, Tsai became the first female presidential candidate of a major party in the history of the Republic of China after defeating her former superior, Su Tseng-chang, in the DPP's primary by a slight margin. She was defeated by incumbent Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou in the 5th direct presidential election in 2012, but was elected by a landslide four years later in the 6th direct presidential election in 2016.

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