Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Hopeful: Dr. William Lai

Son of a coal miner turned Taiwan's top politican

Taiwan Vice President and Chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) William Lai gestures during his speech at the DPP headquarters in Taipei on April 12, 2023. - Lai will represent the DPP running for presidential elections in 2024. Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images

Taiwan’s pro-independence ruling party has nominated Vice President Lai Ching-te (or William Lai) as its 2024 presidential candidate ahead of next January’s election. Lai’s supporters believe that he could mend Taiwan’s political divide and stand up to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Unlike some Taiwanese politicians, Lai is unafraid to address cross-strait issues head-on. He asserted that his government’s position is “anti-CCP but not anti-China,” and opposed Taiwan being annexed by the Chinese regime.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on April 12 formally announced that Lai will represent the party in a bid to succeed President Tsai Ing-wen, who will step down after completing her second presidential term in May next year.

Humble Beginnings

Born in present-day New Taipei, Lai came from humble beginnings. He is neither a second-generation politician nor from an influential family. His father was a coal miner who died in a mining disaster when Lai was two years old.

Lai and his five siblings were brought up by their mother, who worked hard to make ends meet to support the family.

Despite the many struggles, he would go on and become a prominent medical doctor, legislator, mayor, premier, and now the vice president, becoming a significant figure in Taiwan’s politics.

Vice President Lai Ching-te (C) waves to reporters at the DPP headquarters in Taipei after he received the DPP's nomination to run in the presidential elections scheduled on Jan. 13, 2024, in Taiwan, on April 12, 2023. CNA Photo

From Medicine to Politics

Lai obtained a bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University’s Department of Physical Medicine, completed a post-bachelor program in medical science at National Cheng Kung University, and obtained a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University.

According to his public profile, he is one of the few physicians in Taiwan with rehabilitation, clinical care, and public health expertise. In 1994, he was a chief resident at National Cheng Kung University Hospital.

Lai’s transition from a career in medicine to politics coincided with Taiwan’s democratization movement, which began in the 1990s when democratic elections were first introduced in Taiwan.

In particular, during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when Beijing conducted a series of missile tests in the waters surrounding Taiwan, Lai gave up his successful medical career to enter politics in pursuit of democracy.

In the election for National Assembly representatives that year, Lai was the top vote-getter representing Tainan City, a major municipality in southern Taiwan. After winning a seat, he set out on a mission to abolish the National Assembly, which, at that time, was under the Kuomintang’s (KMT: the Chinese Nationalist Party) one-party control.

Early Life and Family

Despite having an impoverished childhood, Lai said that the biggest asset his father left him was poverty, which led him to develop the courage to overcome the most difficult challenges. His mother’s hardship and unconditional love in the upbringing of Lai and his siblings shaped his character.

A screenshot of an undated photo of Taiwan Vice President William Lai from his Facebook account. Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Despite being in politics for nearly 30 years, Lai dislikes publicity and hype, and his family stays out of the spotlight. His wife, Wu Mei-ju, has rarely appeared in public. She had reportedly made a deal with Lai that she would not interfere nor participate in politics but instead focus on raising their two sons, who are now in their 30s.

Political Career and Achievements

In 1998, Lai was elected as a legislator representing Tainan City. During his tenure, he addressed over 100,000 local issues—a service record unheard of at the time. He placed equal emphasis on both professional governance and service to his people. In appreciation, Tainan residents elected him to the legislature for four consecutive terms (1998–2010).

He was selected as Taiwan’s “Best Legislator” four consecutive times by Citizen Congress Watch, a Taipei-based non-profit overseeing the performance of Taiwan’s legislators.

In 2010, Tainan County and Tainan City were merged to form the Tainan Special Municipality. Lai was elected as its first mayor with over 60 percent of the vote—it was the first time he ran for executive office.

Then-Tainan Mayor William Lai briefs the press on the current status of the search and rescue operation in a building that collapsed in the 6.4 magnitude earthquake in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan early on Feb. 9, 2016. Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images

Lai was the only mayor among Taiwan’s major municipalities who did not use the municipal’s budget to hire a chauffeur.

He was ranked the top mayor of Taiwan during his first term and was given the name of “five-star mayor” by the public and media.

In 2014, when Lai sought reelection as mayor, he did not set up campaign headquarters, erect billboards, and flags, or use broadcasting vehicles for his election ads typical in Taiwan’s elections. He reportedly did not want to disturb the city’s residents or its landscape.

Despite a general lack of campaign ads, he received nearly 73 percent of the votes for his reelection bid, the highest in Tainan’s history. During his tenure as mayor, he built a reputation for running an honest, diligent, and efficient government. Many have referred to him as a humble and selfless man with integrity, according to various local media reports.

After the mayorship, Lai served as premier, the head of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan, from 2017 to 2019.

A local Taiwanese media compiled the records of Lai’s property declarations and found that Lai and his wife lived like ordinary people, carrying mortgage debts and gradually paying them off with work salaries.

A Candidate That Could Mend Taiwan’s Political Divide

In late 2019, President Tsai Ing-wen invited Lai to be her vice-presidential running mate in the 2020 election. At the time, the anti-extradition protests were taking place in Hong Kong, and defending Taiwan’s democracy was more important than ever amid escalated threats from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Lai accepted Tsai’s proposal, and both won the election with a record 8.17 million votes, the highest in Taiwan’s presidential history. Lai was sworn in as Taiwan’s 15th vice president in May 2020.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (R) and Vice President-elect William Lai (L) gesture outside the campaign headquarters in Taipei on Jan. 11, 2020. - Tsai declared victory in Taiwan's election on Jan. 11 as votes were counted after an election battle dominated by the democratic island's fraught relationship with China. Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images

Lai is seen as more socially conservative than Tsai, a progressive who spearheaded reforms, such as legalizing same-sex marriage and establishing climate goals. These topics are not as widely accepted by Taiwan’s general public.

Lai has taken a more neutral stance on some of Tsai’s more progressive agenda despite being a member of her government. His traditional values appear more aligned with the people of Taiwan, which remains more socially conservative compared to most Western nations.

Lai is one of the less polarizing political figures in Taiwan, as members of the opposition parties have recognized and praised him as a “pragmatic” person.

Stance on China

In January this year, Lai won his party’s uncontested chairmanship election on Jan. 15, which was called after Tsai resigned as DPP chairwoman following the party’s defeat in a midterm election last November.

The chairmanship would put him in charge of the party and its direction while paving the way for his presidential bid.

At a press conference following the swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 18, he asserted, “Taiwan is already an independent and sovereign nation and, therefore, there is no need to declare independence.”

Lai advocates that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should respect and cooperate with each other.

In 2019, Lai stated that the DPP government’s position is “anti-CCP but not anti-China,” and opposes Taiwan being annexed by the Chinese regime. He criticized the CCP for seeking to expand and change the international order.

He added that Taiwan should stand firm in the democracy camp, play an active role in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific strategy, and resist the expansion of communist forces. He also advocated that Taiwan help promote the values of democracy and human rights in mainland China.

Beyond Politics: Pursuit for Peace and Human Rights

Lai attaches great importance to the universal values of peace and human rights.

In his campaign for the 2024 presidential election in Tainan, Lai emphasized that peace is priceless and that there is no winner in war.

In 2022, Lai visited Tokyo to attend the funeral of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had always viewed Taiwan as an “important partner” and “precious friend” of Japan.

Taiwan's Vice President William Lai leaves after a funeral of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election, at Zojoji Temple in Tokyo, on July 12, 2022. Issei Kato/Reuters

Abe said in an online forum in 2021 that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency, and therefore an emergency for the Japan-U.S. alliance.”

Lai’s visit to Tokyo displeased Beijing and was seen as a diplomatic breakthrough.

He is the highest-ranking Taiwanese official to visit Japan since Tokyo cut off diplomatic ties with Taipei (Republic of China) in 1972 and established official relations with Beijing.

In a recent campaign rally for president, Lai said that the 2024 election in Taiwan is not a duel between war and peace but a duel between democracy and autocracy; this is the essence of cross-strait relations.

Many top politicians in Taiwan are afraid to touch on sensitive human rights issues for fear of angering the CCP.

Lai has long supported Falun Gong adherents and condemned the CCP for organ harvesting. He also served as the head of the Asian branch of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient Chinese spiritual practice consisting of five meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The practice became widely popular for its health benefits in China in the 1990s, eventually attracting an estimated 70 million to 100 million by the end of the decade, according to official Chinese records.

Falun Gong practitioners meditate at a park in Guangzhou, China, in 1998. The Chinese Communist Party banned the spiritual group in 1999. Courtesy of Minghui.org

Perceiving this popularity as a threat to its power, the CCP started an elimination campaign in 1999, resulting in millions of adherents being detained and an unknown number of deaths from slave labor, torture, and other abuses over the past 23 years.

In 2019, an independent tribunal in London concluded, after a year-long investigation, that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years “on a significant scale,” with detained Falun Gong practitioners being the principal source of organs. Its final judgment, released in March 2020 and included 300 pages of witness testimony and submissions, found “no evidence of the practice having been stopped.”

In recent years, Lai has attended at least four performances by Shen Yun Performing Arts, most recently at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei on March 28.

Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company's curtain call at National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei on the afternoon of July 8, 2022. Annie Gong/The Epoch Times

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company, and since its inception in 2006 has become a global phenomenon. Using the universal language of music and dance, it seeks to “revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization” and show audiences the beauty of “China before communism.”

Lai has repeatedly voiced concerns about human rights violations in China and expressed support for the 2019–2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

Xueling Teng and Eva Fu contributed to this report.