The hard-charging leader of Taiwan altered the rules for dealing with China

The small, mild-mannered president of Taiwan is renowned for detesting interviews.

It has taken many months of discreet talks to have a meeting at Tsai Ing-wen's Taipei home, just before her eight-year term ends and she turns things over to William Lai, her successor.

Still, the president appears more eager to inquire about me than to discuss herself. She is undoubtedly more at ease displaying her dogs and kittens to us than she is fielding questions in front of a moving camera.

She points to the big, grey tabby that is observing me warily through the open doorway and says, "That's Xiang Xiang." "Are you interested in meeting her?"

Tsai Ing-wen was mocked for being a middle-aged single woman and referred to as a "cat lady" when she unexpectedly rose to power in 2016. She accepted the picture, showing up on magazine covers with Xiang Xiang cradled in her arms. Her admirers quickly gave her the moniker "Taiwan's Iron Cat Lady."

Tsai acknowledges that she has a secret fondness for Margaret Thatcher, but she quickly clarifies that this isn't because of her social ideas but rather her toughness as a female leader.

Taiwan discovered an unexpected hero in Tsai Ing-wen. She cautiously but firmly restored ties with Beijing, which had claimed sovereignty of the freely managed island for 75 years, throughout her two terms in office.

She resisted a more hostile and authoritarian China under Xi Jinping; she maintained and strengthened a crucial US partnership under Donald Trump and Joe Biden. At home, she strengthened the defenses of the island and made same-sex marriage legal—a first for Asia.

In Taiwan's raucous political scene, Tsai avoided the limelight while Xiang Xiang rose to fame. Along with the president's other feline companion, Ah Tsai, she was the highlight of Tsai's 2020 reelection campaign.

Tsai's critics exist. Beijing, as well as many elderly Taiwanese who have business and family ties in China, are not fans; they desire improved relations with China. She has faced criticism at home for not doing more to boost the economy; in January's election, her party lost support from young people due to the growing cost of living, overpriced housing, and a lack of employment.

Furthermore, her fiercest detractors worry that rather than making the 23 million-person island safer, she has increased it.

To put it bluntly, the challenge facing any leader in Taiwan is this: a much larger, more affluent, and more powerful neighbor who claims ownership of your home, is eager to give it to you without a struggle, and is prepared to use force if you refuse. How do you proceed?

Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai's predecessor, opted for compromise and a trade agreement that favored Beijing.

However, he misjudged the response of Taiwan's youth to what they saw as appeasement. Thousands participated in the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which saw them go to the streets. They took over parliament when President Ma steadfastly refused to yield.

Two years later, Tsai Ing-wen won the election on a completely different calculation—namely, that strength is the only language Beijing is familiar with.

She now claims she has been validated as she gets ready to stand down, saying, "China has become so aggressive and assertive."

Beijing, please back off.

The president cranes her neck to gaze at a lanky, young soldier who is standing stiffly at attention and says, "Wow, you're really tall."

He informs her he is 185cm and she asks, with real concern, “Are the beds here big enough for you?” He tells her that they are.

This occurred on a recent April morning at Tsai's recently built special forces training facility outside of Taipei.

When the president walks into the massive dining hall, hundreds of crew-cut recruits stand to attention and cry "Zong Tong Hao!" (Hello, President!). The laid-back and talkative president vanishes.

She almost doesn't belong in these surroundings. Her discourse lacks lofty rhetoric and is honorable and straightforward. However, these trips are very regular in order to ensure that the military changes she has pushed through are having the desired effect.

One of the hardest was requiring all males above the age of 18 to serve one year in the military. "But we have to make sure that their time spent in the military is worthwhile," she adds, acknowledging that it is unpopular but acknowledging that the public acknowledges its need.

Tsai, a veteran trade negotiator and law professor, has unexpectedly spent a significant portion of her tenure as president wearing fatigue suits. She may be seen holding a rocket launcher in a well-known photo. The reason is that, in her opinion, Taiwan cannot expect to repel Beijing in the absence of a cutting-edge, highly skilled military that young Taiwanese are happy to serve in.

Although China has long threatened to invade, President Xi Jinping has only now acquired the military might to carry out what would still be a massive and dangerous operation. Additionally, his warnings are becoming more dire and menacing. His two statements that a resolution on Taiwan cannot be handed down from one generation to the next have been read by some as a desire for it to be completed within his lifetime.

Tsai has begun the task of reconstructing Taiwan's antiquated, disheartened, and inadequately armed ground troops across the Taiwan Strait. Though it has been difficult, the effects are starting to become apparent. The annual defense budget has increased to around $20 billion (£16 billion).

"Our military might is far more now than it was eight years ago. We have made unprecedented investments in our military capabilities, Tsai claims.

Many members of Taiwan's opposition who I have talked to really think that Tsai's military build-up plan is foolish, if not dangerous. They cite China's more than two million active soldiers, its formidable navy, and its position as the biggest in the world. Taiwan's armed forces are minuscule in comparison.

That is not getting the idea across, Tsai and her followers. They claim Taiwan is raising prices sharply to scare China, not to repel an invasion by the Chinese.

According to Tsai, "taking over Taiwan is going to be extremely expensive." "Instead, we should raise the price."

When Tsai took office as president, she was no stranger to Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party. She started out as a trade negotiator in the mid-1990s, which marked the beginning of her unconventional climb to prominence. The first president of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chen Shui-bian, then saw her. He gave her the position of head of Taiwan's main diplomatic office with China. She revised the book there about Taiwan's relations with Beijing.

She is aware of the red lines and feels that Taiwan needs allies in order to oppose China: "Forming a collective deterrent with our friends in the region and bolstering our military might are two important steps in this process."

A lot of people in Tsai's party, the DPP, are now talking about a new alliance that would have the US acting as the team's quarterback and extending from Japan and South Korea in the north to Australia in the south via the Philippines. However, this is just speculative. Taiwan does not have any official military alliances, nor does it have an Asian NATO. Tokyo and Manila share a strong dislike for Beijing, but they are hesitant to declare their support for Taiwan. Washington, that most significant friend, has not even promised to put troops on the ground.

Tsai, however, has optimism. She makes reference to competing claims made by Beijing, Tokyo, and Manila over disputed seas and islands, saying, "A lot of other countries in the region are alert and some of them may have a conflict with China."

Therefore, China is not only a problem for Taiwan. This affects the whole area.

Soft power's effectiveness

For a president of Taiwan, painting China as a big, evil bully is not difficult. Finding partners willing to take the risk of upsetting the second-biggest economy in the world is a more difficult task.

And for that reason, Taiwan's diplomatic life is becoming ever more solitary. China has been applying pressure on the island's surviving friends for the last ten years; now, just twelve do, the most of which being little microstates in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Tsai thinks that forging partnerships with "like-minded democracies" is the best way to break out from this diplomatic isolation.

She uses this opportunity to meet foreign officials from nations that do not consider Taiwan to be a member of the United Nations by hosting several legislative delegations from across the globe. I went to Holocaust Memorial Day last month. There was poetry and music, and the German delegate gave a speech that people would never forget.

Moreover, there are more odd occurrences. Taiwanese-American drag queen Nymphia Ward performed earlier this week at Tsai Ing-wen when Xi Jinping was preparing to meet Vladimir Putin in Beijing. Nymphia allegedly informed Tsai, "This is probably the first presidential office in the world to host a drag show."

These represent Taiwan as a brand, one that the rest of the world ought to be concerned about losing.

"People claim that Taiwan should get more help since we are more significant than Ukraine from a geopolitical and supply chain standpoint. We decline. The democratic nations must aid Ukraine, according to Tsai.

Rather of capitalizing on Taiwan's enormously profitable chip industry—which is easily replicable—Tsai uses the one advantage she has against the Chinese Communist Party: the soft power of democracy.

At every DPP event in the lead-up to the January election, it was difficult to overlook the rainbow flag.

We are allowed to live as we like in Taiwan. One couple informed me, "We could not do this in China."

Compared to when I was a student here more than 30 years ago, there has been a significant shift. Taiwan was still getting used to life under military control for forty years. One homosexual buddy of mine was frantically trying to find a way to the United States. In the past, being discovered to be gay while serving in the military might land you in prison or a mental health facility.

That changed, but when Tsai Ing-wen's administration pushed through laws legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019, it went further than any other government in Asia. Even still, slightly more than half of people were against it. Some launched a loud campaign against it, including family and religious organizations. She may not have been re-elected as a result of the significant political risk she took.

Although Tsai describes it as a "very difficult journey," she believes it is vital because it is a test of society's ability to advance its ideals. Actually, I'm kind of pleased that we were able to get over our disagreements.

Taiwan remains a patriarchal and traditional country. I ask Tsai whether she worries that if she leaves as the island's first female president, it will become a "boys club" again. She declares, "I have a lot of opinions about that boys club," without going into more detail.

She believed that the island's strength was its diverse heritage—it is an immigrant community.

Thousands of native peoples were joined by the Chinese when they arrived in waves, often hundreds of years apart.

"There are many challenges in... [such a] society," Tsai states. People are no longer as constrained by customs. To survive [as a community] is the primary objective. This explains how we were able to transition from an era of authoritarianism to one of democracy.

She thus believes that Taiwan's most significant alliance—with democracy and the most powerful nation in the world—will endure, regardless of who wins the presidency in November.

BFFS indefinitely?

Tsai Ing-wen called Donald Trump after his unexpected win in 2017 to offer her congratulations, but the call was cut off. Since Jimmy Carter, no US president has answered a call from the president of Taiwan. According to Tsai, the conversation was brief, personal, and comprehensive.

In actuality, Taiwan is at the mercy of Trump. While Tsai notes that he has condemned the island for "stealing America's semiconductor industry," he has also authorized more weaponry transfers to Taipei than any of his predecessors. However, she is unwilling to talk about him or the likelihood of his going back to the White House.

She does want to draw attention to the idea that China is becoming a bigger danger.

"China is being told by the rest of the world that using military force [against Taiwan] is not acceptable." There is no room for unilateral action, non-peaceful tactics, and... She said, "I believe China received the message.

That may be wishing for the best. The military's pressure hasn't seemed to lessen. Instead, China routinely crosses the median line that separates the Taiwan Strait's seas and airspace with hundreds of armed ships and planes. Beijing claimed in 2022 that it no longer recognized the boundary as it really existed. One of Tsai's diplomatic coups served as the catalyst.

The historic visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022 was welcomed in a Taiwan that lacked worldwide recognition. However, China became enraged and launched ballistic missiles into the Pacific Ocean and over the island for the first time ever.

It served as a caution. There were even many inside Tsai's own government who expressed modest concerns that Pelosi's visit had been an error.

We've been alone for a very long time, she remarks. "It's impossible to refuse Speaker Pelosi's visit." Of course there are hazards involved.

Her voice has a hint of stress in it. Opponents of hers claim Pelosi's visit was careless and exposed Taiwan more. It's believed that President Biden was against the trip as well.

Tsai, however, asserts that Taiwan needs toe this line.

Tsai Ing-wen describes her tenure as the DPP's leader as "having to turn a party of revolutionaries into a party of power."

She led a group of older, male radicals who had spent their formative years either fighting for Taiwan's independence or being imprisoned for it when she assumed power. She was an economics degree.

She claims that as Taiwan is already an independent, sovereign country, there is no need for it to have a vote or proclaim its independence.

We are by ourselves. We have a political structure in place to rule this country, but we still make our own choices. We have laws, a constitution, and an armed force. We consider ourselves to be a nation with all the characteristics of a state.

She states that they are waiting for the world to acknowledge it.