Tenth-term Vice President,
Republic of China
Lu Hsiu-lien was born on June 7, 1944, in Taoyuan, Taiwan. She studied law
at National Taiwan University, graduating first in her class in 1967. She earned
a master's degree in comparative law from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 1971, and an LL.M. from Harvard in 1978.
In the 1970s, Lu introduced feminist ideas to Taiwan through a series of important
newspaper articles and books, and later became the country's leading women's
rights activist. She established a publishing house, a coffee shop/resource
center, and hotlines for women before she left Taiwan in 1977 to study at Harvard.
In 1978, foreseeing that the United States would soon sever diplomatic relations
with the ROC, she gave up her studies at Harvard and returned to Taiwan. She
ran for a seat in the National Assembly that autumn, but when the US announced
recognition of the PRC on December 16, the government canceled the election
scheduled for December 23.
Lu then became increasingly active in tang-wai ÄÒ¥~, the local opposition
movement. In 1979, she delivered a 20-minute speech criticizing the government
at an International Human Rights Day rally that turned into a riot, known as
the "Kaohsiung Incident." She was tried under martial law and found guilty of
sedition, and harshly sentenced to 12 years in prison. In 1985, she was released.
Lu resumed her campaign for women's rights, democracy, and international recognition
for Taiwan. In 1993, she founded the Taiwan International Alliance to press
for Taiwan's membership in the UN. As a member of the opposition Democratic
Progressive Party, Lu was elected to the Legislative Yuan, where she served
on the Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 1993. In 1994, Lu chaired the
Global Summit of Women, and in 1995, she hosted the Feminist Summit for Global
Peace held in Taipei.
In 1996, President Lee Teng-hui appointed her National Policy Advisor, breaking
away from the usual practice of appointing only members of the ruling party.
Lu was elected Taoyuan County magistrate in a March 1997 by-election on a platform
of reform and ending government corruption. Nine months later, she was re-elected
in the regular election by a large margin.
On March 18, 2000, Lu was elected the tenth-term vice president of the ROC.
After her inauguration on May 20, she actively participated in government affairs,
effectively promoting the new government as a symbol of "social equality and
harmony" between men and women and of "political rule by both sexes." In foreign
affairs, she redefined cross-strait relations as "distant relatives, close neighbors."
In September 2000, she made her first overseas state visit to the ROC's Central
American diplomatic partners, including El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, and Guatemala.
During the trip she emphasized the ROC's "Soft Power" of "democracy, human rights,
peace, love, and high technology."
Focusing on peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, Vice President
Lu called for a Union of Asian States that was modeled after the European Union
and would promote resource-sharing, cooperation, and peaceful co-existence.
In August 2001, Vice President Lu organized the "Global Peace Assembly: Voice
from Taiwan" with local non-governmental organizations, inviting five winners
of the Nobel Peace Prize to Taiwan to promote peace in the Taiwan Strait and
the rest of the world.
On December 9, 2001, Vice President Lu became the first woman to be awarded
the World Peace Prize from the World Peace Corps Academy for her significant
contributions to world peace. Later that month, she led a special delegation
to The Gambia for the inauguration of President Yahya Jammeh in Banjul.
In January 2002, she left Taiwan for New York to bring the condolences of the
people of Taiwan to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack. She then
traveled to Nicaragua to attend the inauguration of President Enrique Bolanos
Geyer in Managua. Subsequently, she made a state visit to Paraguay, the ROC's
only diplomatic partner in South America.
