Top 41 Quotes & Sayings by Tsai Ing-wen

If I'm elected president, I'll make people's voice the foundation of policymaking.

A more consistent and sustainable relationship with China will be a core goal of my administration. That requires open channels of communication, both with China's leadership and the Taiwanese people.

In the face of love, everyone is equal. Let everyone have the freedom to love and to pursue their happiness. I am Tsai Ing-wen, and I support marriage equality.

The youth of Taiwan not only have to face the harsh reality of low wages and high commodity and housing prices, but due to the lack of employment opportunities, many young people are forced to leave their home towns to search for jobs in the cities.

I will, based on the existing ROC constitutional system, based on democratic principles, on the basis of the largest public opinion, promote cross-strait policy.

We will work toward maintaining the status quo for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait in order to bring the greatest benefits and well-being to the Taiwanese people.

I have promised on many occasions that I will build a consistent, predictable and sustainable cross-strait relationship.

For many Taiwanese, almost all Taiwanese, we'd like to we say we are a country, and we have a sovereignty of our own.

We will do everything in our power to make sure cross-strait stability becomes the driving force for peace in the Asia-Pacific region.

Our democratic system, national identity, and international space must be respected. Any forms of suppression will harm the stability of cross-strait relations.

Mrs. Thatcher was a powerful figure at the time I was a student in London. And I admire her versatility and strength.

The greatness of this country lies in how every single person can exercise their right to be himself or herself.

We are not facing China alone; we are facing China together with a lot of other people in the region.

I was not considered a kid that would be successful in my career.

To me, providing a new economic way forward is of utmost urgency and will be of foremost importance for the new DPP administration if I am elected.

Ma Ying-jeou tends to use cross-strait policy as an election tool and a political tool, too, and my position is that we don't use that as a political tool because that is an issue that is critical and essential to the interests of the Taiwanese people.

I would have a democratic process for people to get together and talk about the way they want the government to conduct business with China.

There are some voters who are rather traditional and have some reservations about electing a woman leader. But the younger generation are excited to have a woman leader for the country. They think it is somewhat trendy.

I will rebuild the people's trust in government and create a stable foundation for Taiwan's future development.

Gender used to be a barrier for women to overcome if they wanted to be in politics, but today in Taiwan the situation is somewhat different. I think there is even a preference for a woman candidate, and in local elections, we have seen that younger, better-educated female candidates are overwhelmingly preferred by the voters.

People have this vision of me as a conservative person, but I'm actually quite adventurous.

Democracy is not just an election, it is our daily life.

I will make the greatest efforts to seek a way for Taiwan and mainland China to interact that is mutually acceptable to both sides. I will not be provocative; there will not be any surprises.

We treat China as a normal trading and economic partner.

Politically, of course, the U.S., despite the flaws in its systems, is still a democracy - we like to associate with democracies. And strategically, the U.S. is a counter-balance to China, a rising China that is not yet a democracy.

We attach great importance to the peaceful development of cross-strait relations. But if our diplomatic relations is subject to China's goodwill, we will lose the autonomy of our diplomacy.

I have this idea of a Taiwan Consensus, which means people in Taiwan have to get together and form a consensus of their own and that they turn around to talk to the Chinese to form a cross-strait consensus so we can build a relationship on that consensus. And in my view, that is the right order to do things.

I will make the greatest efforts to seek mutually acceptable interaction between Taiwan and mainland China.

China is still our largest trading partner; however, complementarity between our economies is decreasing. We had the ability to organize a manufacturing process, and then we moved our manufacturing capability to China to make use of their labor pool.

For years, Taiwan has been dominated politically by a single party, the Kuomintang. People now want the place to be more democratic. They want to place more emphasis on human rights and transparency in terms of government decision-making. This is different from the way the government conducted business in the days when this was pretty much an authoritarian place.

Different generations and people of different ethnic origins have different views on China. But they all agree on one thing. That is democracy.

Over past period, we have handled relations with China very carefully. We do not take provocative measures, we make sure that there are no surprises, and we hope that through channels of communication, we can gradually build up trust.

We have always had diverse channels of communication across the strait. These include not just official communications but also people-to-people contacts... There are differences between the positions of the two sides of the strait. In Taiwan, we have done our best to minimize that gap. I believe that the Chinese realize the goodwill we have put forth at the inauguration.

People feel anxious, especially when we have to wonder whether the president, Taiwan's democratically elected president, will be addressed as president. If he cannot even defend his own title, what can he defend for us?

I think that my emergence as a leader is closely related to the development of Taiwan's democracy. Taiwan's democracy was a gradual development. It was done from the bottom up. Therefore a lot of the more successful political leaders come from civil society, those that are closer to the grass-roots level of the public.

I am not clear what the U.S. means when they use the term "entity." For us here in Taiwan, we believe that we are a country, a democratic country.

Taiwan is the Republic of China, the Republic of China is Taiwan.

I think that Chairman Xi Jinping's courage tackling corruption is an important matter in the development of Chinese society. I also look forward to him showing a bit more flexibility in dealing with cross-strait relations. I hope that he can appreciate that Taiwan is a democratic society in which the leader has to follow the will of the people.

I think Taiwan's economy needs an overall structural readjustment. Our new model focuses on innovation and research. This is different from our growth model in the past, which was centered on the manufacturing industry.

If China do take economic measures to apply pressure to Taiwan, they will have to think about the price that they are going to pay. Because the surrounding countries will be looking very carefully at what measures China will take against Taiwan.

I think that the society and our democracy are mature enough to place emphasis on the quality and the value of the individual politician, rather than their gender. Some people will find it fashionable to have a woman leader, but I think the reason people chose me as the leader of this country is because my policies and my values suit the needs of Taiwan today. We represent people who want to have change in the society.