Tsai Ing-wen

Tsai Ing-wen was born on 31 August 1956, in Taipei, Taiwan, to Chang Jin-feng and Tsai Jie-sheng. She was the youngest of the nine children of her parents. Her father had a car repair business.

As the youngest child in her family, she spent much of her leisure time caring for her father. No one in her family expected the girl to grow up to have a professional career.

Her father encouraged her to study and on his advice she enrolled at the College of Law, National Taiwan University, and earned her bachelor’s degree in 1978. She then moved to the Cornell University in New York to earn a Master of Laws in 1980. In 1984, she earned a Ph.D. in law at the London School of Economics.

She returned home and began her career as an educator, teaching law at School of Law at Soochow University and National Chengchi University, both in Taipei.

A highly ambitious woman, she had ventured into governmental positions by the early 1990s. Working under the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT), she served as a key trade negotiator involved in Taiwan’s entry into the World Trade Organization and was also one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine of then President Lee Teng-hui.

In 2000, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came into power and President Chen Shui-bian took office. Under his administration, she served as Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council.

She became a member of DPP in 2004. In 2006, she was appointed to the post of vice president of the Executive Yuan, a position commonly referred to as vice premier under the Premier Su Tseng-chang. During this time she also served as chairwoman of the Consumer Protection Commission.

In 2007, Tsai, along with the rest of the cabinet resigned when Premier Su Tseng-chang left his post. She was then replaced by Chiou I-jen, the incumbent secretary-general of the Presidential Office as vice premier.