The Troublemaker: Chen Shui-bian Reconsidered, Part 1

Guest essayist Nicholas Haggerty makes a provocative case for reassessing Chen's legacy.

Hello dear readers! Happy Lunar New Year.

We’re proud to share an essay from Nicholas Haggerty, a writer and editor of the News Lens. It explores the legacy of Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan’s democratically elected president from 2000 to 2008, who eventually landed in prison on corruption charges. Today Chen is on medical parole, forbidden to make public speeches, and shunned by the party he helped propel to power.

We’ve been watching with anticipation for months as this essay has developed and taken shape, and to our knowledge there hasn’t been a piece like it, in English or in Mandarin. Why did Chen’s star never rise again, as it did for his Brazilian contemporary Lula da Silva, who was also disgraced by a corruption scandal during his presidency but is now a darling of the international left? Nick explores these questions with care. Last week he biked for six hours from Pingtung to Tainan to find Chen’s childhood home in a “village as poor and rural as any I’ve seen,” he texted us, with “no…