Who is Taiwan's new president Lai Ching-te? What challenges is he facing?

Lai Ching-te has been sworn in as Taiwan’s new president today.

Lai, who was previously the vice-president of Taiwan under Tsai Ing-wen, in his inauguration speech vowed to make ‘no concessions’ on Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.

The 64-year-old also called on China to ‘cease their political and military intimidation.’

But who is Lai? What challenges does he face?

Let’s take a closer look:

Who is Lai?

Lai was born in 1959 in New Taipei City’s Wanli District.

According to Nikkei Asia, Lai’s father died in a coal mining accident when he was two.

According to Channel News Asia, Lai and his five siblings were raised by his day labourer mother.

More from Explainers

How ChatGPT is becoming everyone’s BFF and why that’s dangerous This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal

Lai would get a BS from National Taiwan University’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, finish the Post-Bachelor Program in Medical Science at National Cheng Kung University and get a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University,

Lai took the plunge into politics in 1996 – during the Taiwan Strait Crisis.

“My defining moment came as China’s military adventurism… threatened our shores with live fire exercises and missiles,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last year.

“I decided I had a duty to participate in Taiwan’s democracy and help protect this fledgling experiment from those who wished it harm.”

Lai served as a lawmaker, mayor of the southern city of Tainan and premier of Taiwan from 2017 to 2019.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Ghaziabad woman dead, pilgrims attacked in bus… How Nepal’s Gen-Z protests turned into a living hell for Indian tourists

Were bodyguards involved in Charlie Kirk’s shooting? The many conspiracies surrounding the killing

In 2019, he agreed to become join Tsai’s ticket as the vice-presidential candidate.

CNN described him as a ‘soft-spoken political veteran’ who comes from the DPP’s more radical wing.

What challenges does he face?

Lai faces challenges on multiple fronts.

Though his DPP has returned to power for an unprecedented third term, it has been diminished by losing its majority in Taipei’s parliament.

As per CNN, the DPP has just 51 out of 113 seats.

A piece in Brookings also noted how Lai netted just 40 per cent of the popular vote.

That figure unfavourably compares to Tsai, who received 56 per cent and 57 per cent of the vote in previous 2020 and 2016 polls.

“If not for the fact that Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election was a contested three-way race, Lai may not have prevailed. Lai’s political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), lost the Legislative Yuan. Its main rival, the Kuomintang (KMT), secured the most legislative seats, albeit short of an absolute majority,” the piece noted.

Thousands of supporters of the small Taiwan People’s Party, headed by former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je who came third in the presidential election, protested in front of DPP headquarters on Sunday, saying the DPP has not lived up to its promises in the last eight years in power.

On Friday, lawmakers punched, shoved and screamed at each other in a bitter dispute over parliamentary reforms the opposition is pushing.

There could be more fighting on Tuesday when lawmakers resume their discussions.

“He will not only face the rising pressure from China, but will also face the Opposition-dominated congress," DPP lawmaker Puma Shen told Nikkei Asia.

This could make it hard for Lai to push through his policies.

According to BBC, Taiwan is facing both an unemployment and cost of living crisis.

“Even though Lai himself is young and charismatic, he represented continuity in the eyes of many Taiwan youth voters who had grown disillusioned during the past eight years of DPP rule,” the Brookings piece noted.

“Many Taiwan youth feel crushed by the weight of limited job opportunities, out-of-reach housing costs, and grim prospects for their future. For these young voters who will be increasingly decisive to the outcome of Taiwan’s next presidential election, “more of the same” is not an appealing proposition.”

The Brookings piece said his main job will be to improve living conditions and prospects for  Taiwan’s youth.

It also noted he will have to boost Taiwan’s technology sector in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Balancing act on China

Lai faces a tricky balancing act when it comes to China.

Lai came across as more of a firebrand earlier in his career.

In 2017, he described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence.”

He has since softened his stance and now supports maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and the possibility of talks with Beijing.

“Lai has spent the last two-plus years trying to convince the world that he is Tsai Ing-wen 2.0,” said Lev Nachman, an assistant professor at National Chengchi University.

Under Tsai’s two-term tenure, relations with China plummeted – with all high-level communications cut off.

Lai has stuck to Tsai’s stance that Taiwan is “already independent”, and does not need to formally declare itself separate from China.

He has also said he is willing to have exchanges with China “on the preconditions of parity and dignity”, explaining that closer ties for economic prosperity should not be traded for Taiwan’s sovereignty.

“Accepting China’s ‘one-China’ principle is not true peace,” he said, referring to a Beijing doctrine that Taiwan is a part of China.

“Peace without sovereignty is just like Hong Kong. It is a false peace.”

In his inaugural speech Monday, Lai called on Taiwanese to “come together to safeguard our nation” against China’s threats to bring the island under its control.

“We must demonstrate our resolution to defend our nation,” he said, warning Taiwan “must not harbour any delusions” about Beijing’s goal.

Lai has vowed to continue his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen’s policies of building up Taiwan’s military capabilities as a deterrence against a potential invasion from China.

What do experts say?

That it would be a mistake to brand Lai as being obsessed with Taiwan’s independence.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Ryan Hass said Lai was not “a wild-eyed zealot with a one-track-minded focus on Taiwan independence”.

“He is a professional politician who has organised his career around becoming Taiwan’s president,” Hass wrote in a report.

“Now that he has ascended to Taiwan’s top elected position, he will want to win re-election.”

“To do so, he almost certainly will need to tack to the center of Taiwan’s political spectrum rather than cater to the wishes of a small minority of Taiwan voters who favour throwing caution to the wind in service of Taiwan independence or unification,” the piece argued.

China, meanwhile, has branded Lai a “dangerous separatist” who will bring “war and decline” to the island.

Beijing regards him as a “stubborn worker” for Taiwan’s independence and a “saboteur of peace.”

While Lai has made repeated overtures to resuming dialogue with China – severed since 2016 – he is likely to be rebuffed.

Beijing “will not respond positively to him any more than it did to Tsai”, said Steve Tsang, director of London’s SOAS China Institute.

“The real issue is how Lai will adjust his approach, once the open arm he is likely to extend to Beijing is met with a cold – or worse – response.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, responding to a question on the inauguration, said Lai, who it called the “Taiwan region’s new leader”, had to make a clear choice between peaceful development or confrontation.

Beijing has long threatened to use force to bring Taiwan under its control – especially if the island declares independence – with Xi upping the rhetoric of “unification” being “inevitable”.

Ahead of Lai’s inauguration, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles cross-strait issues, called “Taiwan independence and peace in the strait… like water and fire”.

Chinese warplanes and naval vessels maintain a near-daily presence around the island.

But many Taiwanese are less worried about the threat of conflict than they are about soaring housing prices, rising cost of living pressures, and stagnating wages.

“If war should break out there would be little I could do,” Jay, a 20-year-old student who gave only his first name, told AFP as he took a photo of the Presidential Office.

“So I will just go with the flow.”

United States

But Lai’s greatest uncertainty on the foreign policy front might come from Washington.

Lai will have to build on Tsai’s efforts to strengthen ties with the US, which doesn’t formally recognise Taiwan as a country but is bound by its own laws to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

The US is the island’s strongest ally and is obligated under a 1979 law to help Taiwan protect itself from invasion.

A new Donald Trump administration could throw off whatever balance Tsai has achieved in Taipei’s relations with Washington and Beijing, Nachman said.

Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of Chinese territory and vows to seize the island by force if necessary to achieve unification, meanwhile, has long opposed any official contact between Washington and Taipei.

Political science professor Luo Chih-mei of National Taipei University said Lai was unlikely to make “complicated moves during a US election year.”

With inputs from agencies