She’s a tough cookie. Remember as well that she helped to rebuild the DPP following the shambolic end of the Chen Shui-bian presidency (2000-2008). I think some posters have forgotten, or maybe are simply unaware of, how badly Chen’s presidency ended and how demoralized many on the green side were at that time. She helped restore discipline in the party, one by-election at a time, when few people wanted to touch this hot potato. That prehistory to her presidency is also an important part of helping Taiwan get back on track.
Absolutely! Ironically I came to Taiwan during Chens reign and I really liked him then. But ya, it went south quick, with no help from the ever fire stoking CKMT. That said, I think nothing helped Tsai more than Ma’s great selling out of Taiwan. Far moresothan chens corruption (corruption is par for the course in Taiwan, I laugh when blue or green point fingers across the aisle on this point…). There remains some CKMT die hards that think Ma selling Taiwan to china was a good thing, but overall i think we all got the message that this must not last. To be fair, Tsai got a lot of lead up from previous failures to shine. So it wasnt hard to look good. But she truly showed herself stronger during the early covid and especially with the Chinese oppression and more international attention. regardless of the cucks in the UN that got bought out by China.
There’s been chatter about this for a while: President Tsai may visit the US in the summer, before August. If this visit goes forward, she’d be the first sitting president to visit the US since Lee Teng-hui visited his alma mater (and also, interestingly, Tsai’s alma mater) Cornell.
As we know, this has turned out to be the case, with Tsai recently visiting New York on her way to Guatemala and Belize.
The New York Times has taken this occasion to look back on the Tsai Presidency, especially in relation to foreign affairs. As Chris Horton puts it: “Tsai Ing-wen has helped Taiwan raise its global profile while handling Xi Jinping + three very different US presidents,” as Tsai has “quietly gotten the job done.”
Many forumosans will be familiar with most of the details below, but as an overview it’s a very helpful piece.
Tsai is the subject of a recently released documentary called Invisible Nation, which is being shown at some film festivals i the US and perhaps elsewhere. Here’s one account of it:
Have any forumosans seen this film? Is it being screened anywhere in Taiwan?
It’s probably her last major televised speech as president. She’s also stumping for her chosen candidate for the next election. Opinion polls seem to have tightened with the lead almost as big as the margin of error. Plus the ‘I don’t know’ element. So looking at the history of elections here on wikipedia… well, it’s still an open guess on the next president.
