If pre-election polls are correct, China’s powerful President Xi Jinping will soon be facing off across the Taiwan Strait against a softly-spoken former law professor who lives alone with her two cats and says the leader she most admires is a little-known US trade official.
But wonkish demeanour notwithstanding, Tsai Ing-wen, the chairman of Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive party and strong favourite to win Saturday’s presidential election, is no pushover.
Formerly Taiwan’s top negotiator with China, she has fought back from losing two major elections, including the last presidential contest, to the ruling Kuomintang, or Nationalist party, and built a 20 percentage point lead over Eric Chu, her KMT rival.