Chen Shui-bian
10th and 11th President of Republic of China(Taiwan) (2000–2008)
Chen Shui-bian (Chinese: 陳水扁; pinyin: Chén Shuǐbiǎn; born 12 October 1950) is a Taiwanese politician and lawyer who served as the fifth president of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008. Chen was the first president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), ending the Kuomintang's (KMT) 55 years of continuous rule in Taiwan. He is sometimes referred to by the nickname A-Bian (阿扁).
He was previously the mayor of Taipei from 1994 to 1998 and the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party for two terms (2002–2004; 2007–2008).
Chen was born in Guantian District, Tainan County to an impoverished farming family. After graduating from National Taiwan University in 1974, he worked as a lawyer, making a name for himself as a human rights lawyer and supporter of Taiwanese independence. He was elected to the Taipei City Council in 1981 under the Tangwai movement, beginning his political career. He joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1987 and was elected to the Legislative Yuan, serving from 1989 to 1994, when he became the first directly-elected DPP Mayor of Taipei in the 1994 mayoral elections. As mayor, Chen led reforms to improve the civil service, oversaw the construction of the Taipei Metro to completion, and launched a crackdown on crime and prostitution. Following his defeat in the 1998 mayoral elections to Ma Ying-jeou despite a positive approval rating, he ran for president in the 2000 Taiwanese presidential election, defeating his two rivals James Soong and incumbent vice president Lien Chan following a split in the ruling Kuomintang, marking the first peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party in Taiwan.
The public source identifies “Chen Shui-bian” as 10th and 11th President of Republic of China(Taiwan) (2000–2008). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chen, Shui-bian and 10th.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22368. VIAF identifies the subject as 52616952. The Library of Congress control number is n86020117. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 2000, 2008 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chen Shui-bian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.