Opinion | Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s political playbook should be essential reading for Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s spectacular re-election was no easy feat. While it is true – as some pan-democratic lawmakers said at last week’s chief executive Legislative Council question-and-answer session – that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, by thoroughly botching up affairs in Hong Kong, played an instrumental role in Tsai’s win, Lam was far from being the only tailwind.

Tsai’s incredible comeback after hitting political rock bottom was the result of her thoroughly capitalising on Hong Kong’s explosive political circumstances and the fog of hopelessness that has settled on the city that refuses to lift. It’s almost hard to believe that it was only a year ago that Tsai was struggling against almost insurmountable headwinds.

Her party had suffered a humiliating defeat in the local elections, losing control of around half of the municipalities and counties it held previously. The result was widely interpreted as a de facto vote of no confidence on Tsai’s first term as president.

A year ago, Tsai had to fight off political forces from within and outside the Democratic Progressive Party. It wasn’t even clear that she would win her own party’s primary. She went on to rack up 8.17 million votes in January’s election, the highest number of votes ever secured by any candidate in a presidential election.

She capitalised on the political turmoil in Hong Kong that arose from an incompetent government’s push to amend the city’s extradition laws to allow the transfer of prisoners to the mainland, Macau and Taiwan. The government’s move was triggered by a murder case in Taiwan in which both the accused and victim were Hongkongers.