69 Facts About Chen Shui-bian

Chen Shui-bian is a retired Taiwanese politician and lawyer who served as the president of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008.

Chen Shui-bian 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Chen Shui-bian held the firm's portfolio for Evergreen Marine Corporation.

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

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

On 12 January 1985, Chen Shui-bian 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, was plagiarized.

Chen Shui-bian's supporters believed this was part of a government campaign to intimidate him, although another theory says it was a simple traffic accident.

Chen Shui-bian lost his appeal in May 1986 and began serving eight months in the Tucheng Penitentiary along with Huang Tien-fu and Lee I-yang, two other defendants in the case.

In 1989, Chen Shui-bian was elected to the Legislative Yuan and served as the executive director of the Democratic Progressive Party caucus.

Chen Shui-bian was instrumental in laying out and moderating many of the DPP's positions on Taiwan independence, including the four ifs.

Chen Shui-bian was reelected to another three-year term in 1992, but resigned in two years to become mayor.

Chen Shui-bian was elected as the mayor of Taipei in 1994, largely as the result of a vote split between the KMT incumbent Huang Ta-chou and the KMT-spin-off New Party candidate Jaw Shaw-kong.

Chen Shui-bian levied large fines on polluters and reformed public works contracts.

Chen Shui-bian renamed many of the roads in Taipei, most notably the road which runs between KMT headquarters to the Presidential Palace from Chieh-shou Road to Ketagalan Boulevard in an effort to acknowledge the aboriginal people of the Taipei basin.

Chen Shui-bian made highly publicized evictions of longtime KMT squatters on municipal land, and ordered Chiang Wei-kuo's estate demolished.

Chen Shui-bian was named one of Asia's rising stars, and Taipei became one of the top 50 cities in Asia according to Time Asia magazine.

Chen Shui-bian met with Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori, who promised that he would celebrate if he won the 2000 presidential elections.

Chen Shui-bian appointed the KMT conservative mainlander Tang Fei, a former general and the incumbent defense minister, as his first premier.

Chen Shui-bian promised to be, "president of all the people" and resigned his chairmanship from the DPP.

Chen Shui-bian's administration ran into many problems, and its policies were constantly blocked by the pan-Blue coalition-controlled legislature.

Premier Tang had threatened to resign if the project were canceled, and Chen Shui-bian accepted his resignation on 3 October 2000, only four and a half months after both had taken office.

Chen Shui-bian appointed his political ally Chang Chun-hsiung as Tang's replacement.

Lien had asked Chen Shui-bian to leave the matter for the Legislative Yuan to decide and Chen Shui-bian seemed receptive to the suggestion.

Chen Shui-bian's trip to New York was a first for a head of state from Taiwan as there was unwritten agreement between the US and China that no head of state from Taiwan would be permitted to visit either New York or Washington, DC.

In October 2003, Chen Shui-bian flew to New York City for a second time.

Chen Shui-bian was shot in the stomach while campaigning in the city of Tainan on Friday, 19 March 2004, the day before polls opened on Saturday.

Chen Shui-bian claimed that the shooting was staged by Chen to win sympathy votes.

On 20 May 2004, Chen Shui-bian was sworn in for his second term as president amid continued mass protests by the pan-blue alliance over the validity of his re-election.

Chen Shui-bian defended his proposals to change the constitution, but asked for constitutional reform to be undertaken through existing procedures instead of calling for a referendum for an entirely new constitution which was proposed by former president Lee Teng-hui.

The PRC has stated many times that it cares little about what Chen Shui-bian says, but will watch closely in the next few months to see what he does, a standard sentence that Communist China continues to quote.

In 2005 Chen Shui-bian became the first ROC president to visit Europe, when he attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican City.

Under agreement with the Vatican, Italy permitted all guests to the funeral passage without hindrance and Chen Shui-bian was received at the airport in his capacity as a foreign head of state.

Later in the year, Chen Shui-bian traveled to Miami in stopover for a forum in the Caribbean.

Chen Shui-bian met with members of the US Congress through video conference and was invited to visit Washington, DC On his way back, he was scheduled to fly through San Francisco.

Chen Shui-bian made his way back after making a stopover at Jakarta.

On 28 February, 2006, Chen Shui-bian announced that the National Unification Council, which was set up in 1990 to create guidelines for unification with China if it adopted democracy, would "cease to function".

Chen Shui-bian took care to use this phrase rather than "abolish" because he had promised during his 2000 campaign that he would not abolish the council or its guidelines.

On 3 May 2006, Chen Shui-bian canceled plans to pass through the United States on his way to Latin America.

Chen Shui-bian was hoping to stop by either San Francisco or New York City to refuel and stay overnight, but the US refused his request instead limiting him to a brief refuelling stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, where Chen would not be allowed to step off the plane.

Chen Shui-bian attended the inauguration of Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica, one of the few countries that recognized the Republic of China at that time.

Chen Shui-bian seized the opportunity, approached her and shook her hands, while Chen Shui-bian's aide produced a camera immediately for an impromptu photo-op.

Chen Shui-bian's supporters saw this act as a step forward in Taiwan's struggle for diplomatic recognition, while his detractors claimed that it was a grave breach of international etiquette and put Taiwan to shame.

On 12 May 2007, Premier Su Tseng-Chang resigned his position, and Chen Shui-bian soon appointed Chang Chun-hsiung to fill the vacant premiership.

Support from his own party had dropped with a few prominent members, such as Shih Ming-teh, calling for his resignation in the Million Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Shui-bian Must Go campaign.

On 1 June 2006, Chen Shui-bian declared that he was handing control of governmental matters to Premier of the Republic of China, Su Tseng-chang, and announced he would not be involved in campaigning.

Chen Shui-bian stated that he was retaining authority on matters that the constitution required him to retain authority over, presumably foreign affairs and defense policy, as well as relations with the PRC.

Chen Shui-bian lost a libel case brought on successfully by PFP chairman James Soong.

Soong sued the president after Chen Shui-bian repeatedly accused him of secretly meeting the director of the People's Republic of China's Taiwan Affairs Office.

The prosecutor of the case indicated that once Chen Shui-bian left office, his office would start the procedures to press charges against Chen Shui-bian.

The meeting ended when party leaders demanded Chen Shui-bian to explain the accusation within three days.

Chen Shui-bian said that Taiwan government offices advised him to prepare the receipts in such a fashion, and that after six years of doing so, it is strange that they would never mention an irregularity if it was not the right way to do it.

Chen Shui-bian promised that all of the money actually went to diplomatic missions and did not go into any private pockets.

Chen Shui-bian stepped down on 20 May 2008, the same day that Ma Ying-jeou took office as the new president of the Republic of China.

Chen Shui-bian's lawyers responded by suing Ma, on 6 August 2008, alleging Ma's declassification of the documents that were initially classified by Chen Shui-bian to be "politically motivated".

Supporters of Chen Shui-bian contended that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Chen Shui-bian is the first ROC president to receive a prison sentence.

Former president Chen Shui-bian's son stated the act was created to target the now imprisoned former president.

In September 2012, Chen Shui-bian was admitted to Taoyuan General Hospital after complaints of having difficulty urinating, where it was concluded that he had suffered from a minor stroke.

Chen Shui-bian was transferred to the Taipei Veterans General Hospital for further testing, where he was diagnosed with sleep apnea, severe depression and other cognitive disorders.

In January 2015, Chen Shui-bian was released from prison on medical parole due to his ailing condition.

Chen Shui-bian's time spent under medical parole does not count toward his prison sentence.

Post-presidency, Chen Shui-bian has expressed his wishes to one day visit the village in Fujian which his ancestors migrated from in the 18th century.