Photo: AP Photo/ Louise Delmotte

On 13 January, the people of Taiwan elected a new head of government in Lai Qingde, 64, from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The child of a large family, the son of a coal miner, an LGBT supporter, a Harvard graduate and a successful doctor - he is all the ingredients to lead the island for the next four years. Lai Qingde was born in 1959 in Wanli, a small town in northern Taiwan that is now a district of Xinbei. The future politician's father was a coal miner and died in a coal mine accident when Lai Qingde was two years old. The boy and his siblings were raised by their mother. Observers note that Lai Qingde's determination stems from his childhood: his mother, who worked hard to raise six children, was his role model.

A unique medical expert
Before pursuing a political career, Lai Qingde trained as a doctor. He received his bachelor's degree from the Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at Taiwan State University and continued his studies at Chenggong State University's Faculty of Medicine. He then obtained a Master's degree in Public Health from Harvard University, becoming one of the few physicians in Taiwan with expertise in rehabilitation and clinical care. Lai Qingde later became a national-level expert in the treatment of spinal cord injuries.

Social and political activities
Despite his medical background, Lai Qingde has extensive experience in politics. In 1994, when he worked as a senior resident at Chenggong State University Hospital and headed the Tainan City Doctors Association, he became involved in social and political activities. He began by organizing rallies and political events and after two years gave up his medical career for politics.

He was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1998. The politician has paid particular attention to social and environmental issues and has won great support from the electorate: he has been re-elected to Parliament three times in ten years. From 2010 to 2017, Lai Qingde was mayor of Tainan, Taiwan's sixth largest city with a population of 1.9 million. According to opinion polls, he was the most popular among the heads of the island's 22 cities and counties in 2013, with a popularity rating of 87 per cent.

Předseda vlády
In 2017, he was appointed Chairman of the Island Executive Council (Government). During his first public appearance, Lai Qingde declared that he was in favour of Taiwan's independence from mainland China. He also actively promoted the idea of introducing English as a second official language in Taiwan. He first came up with this initiative in 2014 when he was mayor of Tainan, but at that time he proposed introducing a second language only in the city. This idea was also supported by Taiwan's Chief Executive Tsai Ing-wen, but has not yet been implemented.

In November 2018, following the DPP's defeat in the local elections, Lai Qingde resigned from the leadership and left office in January 2019. A few months later, he registered to run in the Democratic Progressive Party's primaries, competing against his patron Tsai Ing-wen. According to political observers, Lai Qingde's candidacy was pushed by influential DPP veterans who favored a tougher approach toward mainland China. They considered Tsai Ing-wen's policies too soft, but their bet did not pay off: Lai Qingde lost the intra-party election.

This setback did not mean the end of his career, however; Tsai Ing-wen did not turn her back on her rival. In the fall of 2019, he accepted her offer to become her running mate when she seeks a second term. As observers have noted, her rival's preference in the primaries may have been a simple calculation: after her first term at the head of Taiwan's government, Tsai Ing-wen's popularity had declined and she needed to consolidate her position ahead of the election. Lai Qingde, who was popular with voters, was the right man for the job. The calculation paid off: after the tandem won the 2020 election, Lai Qingde became her deputy head of the executive branch. He proved to be a good partner, and his popularity among voters and within the party grew. In January 2023, Lai Qingde became chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and its main hope in the upcoming elections.

Politické názory
Lai Qingde's political views coincide in many ways with those of Tsai Ing-wen. In the past, he has often referred to himself as a "fighter for Taiwan's independence". Recently, especially on the eve of the elections, his rhetoric has changed and softened: he now declares his priority to be the preservation of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Lai Qingde also claims that Taiwan's door for dialogue with China is "wide open". However, the politician denies the 1992 Consensus, which is the PRC's political basis for dialogue with the island authorities.

Analysts expect Lai Qingde to pursue a course of further distancing himself from mainland China and to promote rapprochement with the US and its allies in the region. It is also expected to increase the island's already record military budget and U.S. arms purchases. As Lai Qingde himself has pointed out, only with a strong military can Taiwan maintain the status quo and its autonomy from the mainland. Lai Qingde is an LGBT advocate. Last October, he participated in the LGBTQ+ parade in Taipei, which was the largest such event in Asia (about 176,000 people attended). It is believed that this allowed the politician to increase his electorate at the expense of the younger generation of voters. The DPP is married and has two sons.

Partner in the election
Lai Qingde has chosen Taiwan's former de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Meiqin, as his running mate. She was born in 1971 in Kobe, Japan. The daughter of a Taiwanese-American woman, she grew up in Taiwan and moved to the United States as a teenager. There, she earned a master's degree in East Asian studies from Oberlin College and a master's degree in political science from Columbia University.

Fifty-two-year-old Hsiao Meiqin was the head of the International Relations Department of the Democratic Progressive Party and served as a translator and advisor to then Taiwanese Chief Executive Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) from 2000 to 2002. In 2000, a Taiwanese publication reported that the two had an affair, but after the trial, the tabloid said the claims were fabricated. In 2002, the politician renounced her U.S. citizenship to pursue a political career in Taiwan. Hsiao Meiqin served as a member of the legislature from 2002 to 2008 and 2012 to 2020.

In June 2020, she assumed the key diplomatic post of head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Mission in Washington, the island's de facto embassy in the US. She becomes the first woman to hold the post. Hsiao Meiqin is a great lover of cats, so before she left for the United States, she said she would take her four pets with her. The politician has also repeatedly spoken out in favour of gender equality and in support of LGBT people.

In April last year, the Communist Party of China Central Committee's Taiwan Affairs Office imposed sanctions on her for her "separatist stance" on the Taiwan issue. Hsiao Meiqin and members of her family are banned from visiting mainland China and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

Izvesttia/GN.CZ-RoZ_07

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