25 Facts About Lai Ching-te

Lai Ching-te is a Taiwanese politician who has been the Vice President of the Republic of China since 2020.

Lai Ching-te served as a legislator in the Legislative Yuan from 1999 to 2010, and as Mayor of Tainan from 2010 to 2017, prior to taking office as premier of the Republic of China.

Lai Ching-te then studied at the Harvard School of Public Health for a Master's degree in Public Health, followed by an internship at National Cheng Kung University Hospital.

Lai Ching-te became an expert on spinal cord damage and served as a national consultant for such injuries.

The next opportunity for election to a national body was the 1996 National Assembly, with Lai Ching-te winning a seat representing Tainan City.

Lai Ching-te then joined the New Tide faction and stood as a candidate in the 1998 Legislative Yuan election, representing the Democratic Progressive Party in the second ward of Tainan City.

Lai Ching-te was successful in this election, and subsequently was reelected three times in 2001,2004, and 2008.

Lai Ching-te made on 5 June 2014 a visit to the city of Shanghai to assist an exhibition of art by the late Taiwanese painter Tan Ting-pho and met politicians of the Chinese Communist Party.

Lai Ching-te stood for reelection on 29 November 2014 against Huang Hsiu-shuang of the Kuomintang.

Lai Ching-te's opponent was considered to have such an uphill task in the DPP stronghold that she rode a black horse through the streets of Tainan as an election stunt; a hopeful allusion to her status as a "dark horse".

Lai Ching-te eventually won the election by 45 percentage points, the largest margin of victory in any of the municipal races in the election.

Lai Ching-te stepped down as Mayor in September 2017, after being appointed to the Premiership.

Lai Ching-te was succeeded in acting capacity by Lee Meng-yen.

Lai Ching-te has appeared to have moderated his position on Taiwanese independence particularly when he proposed the idea of "being close to China while loving Taiwan" in June 2017.

Lai Ching-te expressed no desire to run against Tsai Ing-wen in the 2020 presidential election.

In October 2017, it was reported that Lai Ching-te had garnered the approval of 68.8 percent of respondents in a survey, while 23 percent expressed dissatisfaction.

In November 2018, Lai Ching-te tendered his resignation to the president, after the ruling DPP was trounced in local elections.

Lai Ching-te agreed to remain in office to help stabilize the government until the general budget was cleared by the Legislative Yuan in January 2019.

Lai Ching-te's cabinet resigned on 11 January 2019 and Su Tseng-chang was appointed as new premier.

On 18 March 2019, Lai Ching-te registered to run in the Democratic Progressive Party presidential primary, saying that he could shoulder the responsibility of leading Taiwan in defending itself from being annexed by China.

The results of the DPP's primary poll released on 13 June shown that Tsai defeated Lai Ching-te by winning 35.67 percent of the vote over Lai Ching-te's 27.48 percent, officially becoming the DPP's presidential candidate for the 2020 election.

In November 2019, Lai Ching-te accepted president Tsai Ing-wen's offer to become her running mate for the 2020 presidential election.

In November 2022, Lai Ching-te led representatives of Taiwan's travel agencies and industry associations to Palau to foster collaborations between the two countries.

Since Lai Ching-te was the only candidate running, he became the new chairman of the DPP in 2023.

In March 2023, Lai Ching-te registered as the only person to run in the DPP's 2024 presidential primary and was officially nominated by the ruling party in April.