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Lu Hsiu-lien (; born 7 June 1944), also known by her English name Annette, is a Taiwanese politician and lawyer. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1990 and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was vice president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian.
Before entering politics, Lu graduated from National Taiwan University and earned law degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and from Harvard University. She announced her intentions to run for the presidency on 6 March 2007, but withdrew to support eventual DPP nominee Frank Hsieh. Lu ran again in 2012, but withdrew for a second time, ceding the nomination to DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen.
Lu lost the DPP's Taipei mayoral nomination to Pasuya Yao in 2018, and stated that she would leave the party. However, by the time Lu announced in September 2019 that she would contest the 2020 presidential election on behalf of the Formosa Alliance, she was still a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.
After graduating from Taipei First Girls' High School, Lu studied law at the National Taiwan University (NTU). After graduating from NTU in 1967, she earned two Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees: one from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in comparative law in 1971, and another from Harvard Law School, where she was a student of professor Jerome Cohen, in 1978. As a graduate student at Harvard, Lu was classmates with future Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou.
In 1979, Lu delivered a 20-minute speech criticizing the government at an International Human Rights Day rally that later became known as the Kaohsiung Incident. Following this rally, virtually the entire leadership of Taiwan's democracy movement, including Lu, was imprisoned. She was tried, found guilty of violent sedition, and sentenced by a military court to 12 years in prison. She was named by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and, due to international pressure, coupled with the work of Ma Ying-jeou and Jerome A. Cohen, was released in 1985, after approximately five and a half years in jail.
In the 1990s, Lu worked to have Taiwan reenter the United Nations, not under the name "Republic of China" but as "Taiwan".
Lu was a contender for the 2008 presidential election; she announced her candidacy on March 6 and faced Yu Shyi-kun, Frank Hsieh, and Su Tseng-chang for the nomination. After receiving only 6.16% of the votes cast in the DPP primary, Lu withdrew from the race. "VP quits race for Taiwan presidency", Al Jazeera, 7 May 2007. "Frank Hsieh Confirmed as DPP Standard Bearer", China Post, 8 May 2007.
She remained a DPP member through 2019, and announced in September 2019 that she would contest the 2020 presidential election on behalf of the Formosa Alliance, with Peng Pai-hsien as her running mate. On 2 November 2019, Lu suspended her presidential campaign.
In 2010 Lu visited South Korea and advocated Taiwan's use of what she called "soft power," meaning peaceful economic and political development, as a model for the resolution of international conflicts. Soft power lets Taiwan overcome poverty, survive despotism: Lu , Taiwan News, 18 February 2010. In mid-April 2013 speaking at George Washington University, Lu called for the DPP to better understand Mainland China, because Taiwan's future depends on development on the mainland. She stated that cross-strait relations should be defined as not only between distant relatives, but between near neighbors. She also stressed that there should be neither hatred nor war between Taiwan and Mainland China, and that both sides should pursue peaceful coexistence, industrial cooperation, and cultural exchanges.
Speaking at the founding ceremony of Anti-One China Principle Union in Taipei on 29 April 2013, Lu warned against silent annexation of Taiwan by China since the introduction of Anti-Secession Law in 2005 and the gradual erosion of Taiwan's sovereignty. However, she said Taiwan is not opposed to one China existing in the world, just that Taiwan is not part of China. She criticized ROC President Ma Ying-jeou for making Taiwan more and more dependent on China. She reiterated her 1996 Consensus (in opposition to the Kuomintang's 1992 Consensus) for dealing with the China, in which she said Taiwan has been an independent sovereign country since the 1996 ROC presidential election.
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