Tsai Ing-wen made history in 2016 when she became Taiwan's first female president.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen has stood her ground despite increasing belligerent threats from China in the wake of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to island nation.
Here are five points on Tsai Ing-wen:
- The Taiwan President welcomed Ms Pelosi and said at a joint event with her that Taipei is facing "deliberately heightened military threats" but reiterated that the country will not back down. "We will... continue to hold the line of defence for democracy," she added.
- She also thanked the US House Speaker for "taking concrete actions to show your staunch support for Taiwan at this critical moment".
- Tsai Ing-wen made history in 2016 when she became Taiwan's first female president, according to New York Times. One of the landmark decisions during this term was to make gay marriages legal in Taiwan.
- She got her second term in 2020 for standing firm against China in the ongoing territorial dispute. She secured a landslide victory over her opponent Han Kuo-yu Kuomintang party, according to Bloomberg. Tsai has positioned herself as the defender of Taiwan's sovereignty against China's view that the island nation must one day be united with the mainland.
- Tsai Ing-wen was born in a coastal village in south of Taiwan and moved to capital Taipei when she was 11. She is a law graduate from National Taiwan University and completed her master's degree from Cornell University Law School in 1980. She earned her doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1984.
