Chen Shui-bian

Chen Shui-bian (born 12 October 1950) is a Taiwanese former politician and lawyer who served as the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000 to 2008.

Chen was the first president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which ended the Kuomintang's (KMT) 55 years of continuous rule in Taiwan.

He is colloquially referred to as A-Bian (阿扁).

Chen was born to an impoverished tenant farming family of Zhao'an Min Nan ethnicity in Kuantien Township of Tainan County (now part of Tainan City) on the second day of the ninth lunar month in 1950 but was not formally issued a birth certificate until 18 February 1951, because of doubts that he would survive.

Chen was educated in Mandarin Chinese, which had replaced Japanese as the national language following the end of the Japanese administration of Taiwan.

Academically bright from a young age, he graduated from the prestigious National Tainan First Senior High School with honors.

In June 1969, he was admitted to National Taiwan University.

Initially a business administration major, he switched to law in his first year and became editor of the school's law review.

He passed the bar exams before the completion of his junior year with the highest score, becoming Taiwan's youngest lawyer.

He graduated in 1974 with an LL.B. in commercial law.

In 1975, he married Wu Shu-chen, the daughter of a physician.

From 1976 to 1989, Chen was a partner in Formosa International Marine and Commercial Law, specializing in maritime insurance.

He held the firm's portfolio for Evergreen Marine Corporation.

A lawyer, Chen entered politics in 1980 during the Kaohsiung Incident as a member of the Tangwai movement and was elected to the Taipei City Council in 1981.

Chen became involved in politics in 1980 when he defended the participants of the Kaohsiung Incident in a military court.

While his client Huang Hsin-chieh, the leading opposition dissident, and seven co-defendants, including his future Vice President Annette Lu, were found guilty, Chen came to be known for his forceful and colorful arguments.

He has stated that it was during this period that he realized the unfairness of the political system in Taiwan and became politically active as a member of the Tangwai movement.

Chen won a seat in the Taipei City Council as a Tangwai candidate in 1981 and served until 1985.

In 1984, he founded the pro-opposition Civil Servant Public Policy Research Association, which published a magazine called Neo-Formosa.

He was jailed in 1985 for libel as the editor of the weekly pro-democracy magazine Neo-Formosa, following publication of an article critical of Elmer Fung, a college philosophy professor who was later elected a New Party legislator.

On 12 January 1985, Chen was sentenced to a year in prison for libel as a result of his editorship of Neo-Formosa, following the publication of an article which claimed that the doctoral dissertation of Elmer Fung, a college philosophy professor (who would later become a New Party legislator), was plagiarized.

While appealing the sentence, he returned to Tainan to run for county magistrate in November 1985.

Three days after losing the election, his wife, Wu Shu-chen was hit twice by a hand tractor driven by Chang Jong-tsai as Chen and Wu were thanking their supporters.

She was left paralyzed from the waist down.

His supporters believed this was part of a government campaign to intimidate him, although another theory says it was a simple traffic accident.

After being released, Chen helped found the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986 and was elected a member of the Legislative Yuan in 1989, and Mayor of Taipei in 1994.

Chen lost his appeal in May 1986 and began serving eight months in the Tucheng Penitentiary (土城看守所) along with Huang Tien-fu and Lee I-yang, two other defendants in the case.

Whilst in Tucheng the 3 prisoners were also joined for a period of time by Chi Chia-wei a prominent gay rights activist in Taiwan.

While he was in prison, his wife campaigned and was elected to the Legislative Yuan.

Upon his release in 1987, Chen served as her chief counsel.

In May 2022, the Transitional Justice Commission overturned Chen, Huang and Lee's libel charges.

Chen won the 2000 presidential election on 18 March with 39% of the vote as a result of a split of factions within the Kuomintang, when James Soong ran for the presidency as an independent against the party nominee Lien Chan, becoming the first non-member of the Kuomintang to hold the office of president.

Although Chen received high approval ratings during the first few weeks of his term, his popularity sharply dropped due to alleged corruption within his administration and the inability to pass legislation against the opposition KMT, who controlled the Legislative Yuan.

In 2004, he won reelection by a narrow margin after surviving a shooting while campaigning the day before the election.

Opponents suspected him of staging the incident for political purposes.

However, the case was officially closed in 2005 with all evidence pointing to a single deceased suspect, Chen Yi-hsiung.

The couple have a daughter, Chen Hsing-yu, who is a dentist; and a son, Chen Chih-chung, who, having received a law degree in Taiwan, gained a Master of Laws from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.

In 2009, Chen and his wife Wu Shu-chen were convicted on two bribery charges.

Chen was sentenced to 19 years in Taipei Prison, reduced from a life sentence on appeal, but was granted medical parole on 5 January 2015.

Chen's supporters have claimed that his trial and sentencing were politically motivated retribution by the Kuomintang for his years in power.