Lai Ching-te’s mother was bitterly disappointed when the Harvard-educated doctor told her in the 1990s he was giving up his medical career to enter politics.
She might forgive him now: As Taiwan’s vice president, Lai was named Wednesday as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election — a vote being watched more closely than ever from Washington to Beijing.
With U.S.-China tensions increasingly centered around Taiwan — the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own — the winner of the January 2024 election will immediately step into a role that could determine the trajectory of geopolitics and the global economy for years to come.