1. The former Vice President of Taiwan, Lu Hsiu-lien, gave a speech at the 2014 BPW International Congress in Jeju Island, Korea on women's leadership in the 21st century. 2. She discussed the history of women leaders in Northeast Asia, including Empress Dowager Cixi of China, Queen Myeongseong of Korea, and Princess Atsuhime of Japan. She argued Queen Myeongseong deserves careful study to make a fair judgment of her leadership. 3. Lu Hsiu-lien then outlined her own experience struggling for women's rights and becoming the first female Vice President of Taiwan, overturning 50 years of authoritarian rule.

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BPW 2014 International Congress
Women Leadership in the 21st
Century
H.E. Lu Hsiu-lien Annette
Former Vice-President of Taiwan
Juju Island, Korea
May 24, 2014
International President Freda Miriklis, past
Presidents, President Dr. Insil Lee of Korea Federation
of BPW, sisters of IFBPW, distinguished guests, ladies
and gentlemen:
Good morning! Early birds get the worms. Brilliant
and hard working women earn success and respect!
Let’s congratulate the excellent leadership under
President Miriklis and past Presidents who devoted
their wisdom and enthusiasm to the development of
IFBPW.
Congratulations also go to the Korea Federation of
BPW under the leadership of President Insil Lee and
President Aeduk Im of Jeju Club to organize and host

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the 2014 International Congress here in Jeju Island. In
supporting IFBPW and enhancing the sisterhood
between Korea and Taiwan, I would like to present
you the delegation of 50 sisters coming with me from
Taiwan.
We are gathering here today from each corner of the
world, not to complain about the past, rather to
prospect the future. We are talking about the
leadership at the top, talking about how to climb the
mountain, up toward the peak of life. It is a great topic
for this congress as its host Korea is a model country
led by an excellent lady, President Geun-Hye Park.
President Park was born in the first family but grew up
with a series of tragedies and challenges. Her life story
certainly is a legend to women and deserves our
appreciation. Besides the Jeju island has been named
the island of women where women play pivotal roles,
in the families as well as in the society.

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Reflecting over the history of women leadership in
Northeast Asia, coincidentally China, Korea and Japan,
each had a woman with her unique status to play a
unique and critical role at a pivotal moment for her
own country. China’s Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太
后), Korea’s Queen Myeongseong (明成皇后) and
Japan’s Atsuhime (篤姬) were the last queens of a
dynasty. While Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧
太后) was a conservative, Japan’s Atsuhime (篤姬)
appeared to be considerably liberated. However, the
story of Korea’s Queen Myeongseong (明成皇后)
deserves a careful study for a fair judgment on her
leadership for Korea. Based on Feminism, it was
obvious that Dowager Cixi‘s (慈禧太后) conservatism
resulted in the stagnation of China for modernization.
By contrast, Atsuhime’s(篤姬) liberalism was helpful
for Japan’s emancipation from Bakufu (幕府) to Meiji
Restoration (明治維新). However, the destiny of
Korean Queen reflects the struggle of woman for

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herself and for her motherland. Throughout her entire
life, Korea’s last queen fought hard against feudalism
within royal palace and led her country against
intrusion from Russia, China, and Japan toughly and
bitterly. Regretfully, she was slaughtered and burned
to death by her enemy what a tragedy!
In modern history, women did not reach to the
pinnacle position until the 1950’s when Mongolia had
its first female president, though only in a brief period
of time. In 1990’s, there were 30 women elected to
become president. Ever since then, many countries in
Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America have elected
women presidents and female prime ministers. In the
year of 2005, women leadership seemed to be
blooming, as in Germany Liberia, Argentina,
Bangladesh and 15 other nations worldwide.
Up until today there have been 43 countries having
a female President, and 58 countries have had a female

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Prime Minister. And in Asia, there have been 7
countries having a female President and 5 countries
having a female Prime Minister. But are women in
these countries better than others? Not necessarily.
World Asia
Countries ever having a female
President
43 7
Female Presidents who served
less than a year
13
Countries ever having a female
Prime Minister
58 5
Female Prime Ministers who
served less than a year
21
The UNDP uses 3 dimensions to capture the gender
achievement due to gender inequality within a country.
According to 2012 Gender Inequality Index (GII)
rankings, South Korea ranked 27, Singapore ranked 13,

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Japan 21, China 35. Despite that Taiwan is not a UN
member, Taiwan’s GII ranked No.1 in Asia, No.4 in
the world!
Women’s Century, When to Come?
Doubtlessly, 21st
century is the Asian Century. But
is it a century for women?
It is worthy of note that a number of countries in
Asia have had female head of state. And in Taiwan,
I’m the first woman vice-president and the only
vice-president reelected. Up till today, with the
exception of New Zealand, Australia, and me, those
Asian women national leaders all came from powerful
political families, either their father or their husband or
brother was a strong political figure. Some of them in
fact were political widows, and such widow politics
has been a unique phenomenon in Asia. Their

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participation into politics shall not be considered a
model for feminist politician, as they were not on their
own and some were not proven to be good politicians.
They were by no means feminists and women’s rights
were not their priority. A Feminist politician shall
stand up on her own, not on her family; shall fight for
the people, not for her family or herself.
As a matter of fact, the most powerful person of the
year 2007 was not a man but a woman, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who happened to preside
over both the European Council and G8 group in that
year. And nothing terribly bad had happened. It is clear
that women really can lead the world, not just a nation
or a family. Indeed, long before Merkel, Madam
Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister
already enjoyed the reputation of her international
leadership. They are all inspirations for us women.
Women’s Struggle in Taiwan
I would like to take a few minutes to share with you
the struggle and success of women in Taiwan.
Taiwan had been under martial law for 38 years,
whereby people’s freedom and political participation

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had been severely restricted and their human
rights badly suppressed. Socially, it was as
conservative and feudalistic as one can
imagine. Taiwan’s women traditionally suffered from
the double burden of Chinese Confucian teachings and
Japanese male chauvinism.
The whole Taiwan society was debating on how to
prevent young women from attending universities,
since they were expected to abandon their careers and
stay at home to take care of the household after getting
married.
It was under such circumstances that I began
to champion feminism, criticizing male chauvinism
and proposing new feminist beliefs. I wrote articles,
made speeches, organized women and conducted a
variety of activities.
On December 10th
, 1979, when a large number of
people were celebrating the International Human
Rights Day at a rally, and the police and soldiers were
ordered to use tear gas against the crowd. I witnessed
so much chaos that I was outraged and stood on the top
of a truck to deliver a most passionate speech for 20
minutes, before a hundred thousands of people. Three
days later, I was the first one arrested followed by 151
others. Eventually I was sentenced to 12 years in
prison, but was released on a medical parole after 1933
days imprisonment.

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On November 21st
of 1997, the then magistrate of
my home county and eight other local politicians were
brutally massacred. With the country horrified in
shock with mafia and local factions, my party
nominated me to run for the replacement. I accepted
the challenge and got elected overwhelmingly. I had
overcome all the troublesome problems including
crime, corruption and pollutions made by my former
male colleague. I had brought tranquility and
confidence back to my home county, demonstrated to
people that a woman can serve the public better than a
man.
In 2000, I was invited by one of the defense lawyers
from the Martial Law trial, Mr. Chen Shui-bian to be
his running mate, and together we overturned 50 years
of authoritarian one-party rule, making me the first
female vice president. The electoral victory
in 2000 marked Taiwan’s milestone of democratic
change in ending over 50 years’ autocracy regime. It
also marked a new era of bi-gender politics, as
government was no longer monopolized by men.
During the eight years of my Vice-Presidency from
2000-2008, women’s roles and positions in the
political and government offices experienced an
unprecedented surge. Thirty-five women were
appointed into the cabinetry. In particular, I, myself
have initiated a special project named “the Good
Housekeepers” to train single mothers and divorcees,
in housekeeping, baby-sitting and nursing services, not

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only to help them to earn a living, but also to help
professional women to be released from their
household tasks and to devote to their careers.
With regard to Parliament, while in the 1970s only 7
percent of elected legislators were women, reached
now 33 percent. As more women went to Parliament,
they pushed through legislation a number of new laws
to protect and enhance women’s rights.
Write History with HER-stories
From the kitchen to the office, women have made a
big breakthrough, not only for herself but also for
humankind. Have women changed the world when
they became part of the decision makers?
Let us look over the entire human civilization. It has
been noted that 99.9 percent of all wars were initiated
by men, yet 80 percent of victims of war are women
and their beloved husbands and children. Why so?
Because women were not empowered to decide
whether there is a need for a war. Because women
were not empowered to prevent war from happening.
We should not forget that we women are the
descendants of Eve and that we constitute half of the
world population. Without Eve, there would not have
been mankind; without women there wouldn’t be
babies. The point is why through the thousoles year of
human history are there only “his stories” and not “her
stories”?

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Regretfully, throughout human history, problems
after problems threaten the survival of the universe and
living beings, no matter ecological or economic,
political or social. In recent years the global economy
has been hit by financial tsunamis. Worse than that, the
frequent occurrences of natural disasters and
catastrophes are the most crucial crises on earth.
The United Nations’ IPCC reports that, in the year
2008 there were 321 natural catastrophes which have
caused two hundred thirty-five thousand deaths and
affected 211.6 million people.
The geographic records indicate that there had been
5 great extinctions to destroy the earth throughout the
last 500 million years. These records remind us that
currently we are in the mid-term of the 6th
Great
Extinction. In recent years, spices on earth have been
extinguished in an incredible speed.
How much time do we have before we mankind are
extinguished? What shall we do to rescue our mother
earth? There are only ten to tens of years for us to
prevent the menace, but we have to change our
lifestyle and to improve our management of the earth
before it is too late. We have to promote green
economy to reduce environmental pollution and
natural resource depletion. We have to save the earth
and save our future!

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Empowerment of Soft Power
To face the unprecedented, multiple challenges
coming our way, we women have to learn
and apply the wisdom of “soft power.” My country
Taiwan has learned to project soft power, namely,
democracy, human rights, culture, love, peace and
technological innovation.
These values help and facilitate Taiwan’s
transformation from a small, poor country under an
authoritarian regime into a highly developed country
with most advanced high-technology and democracy.
Of course, Korea is another good model for soft power,
making Korea so progressive and powerful in the
world, contrast to the Communist North Korea.
Especially under the leadership of Madam Park, the
strong power of soft power easily distinguishes itself
from the orthodox of hard power manipulated by a
young Communist leader.
While the traditional “hard power” is destructive
and exploitative, soft power is constructive and
generous in nature. Soft power is the foundation for
world peace and substantial development. Hard power
should no longer be the sole measurement of a
country’s success, and soft power will play more
important role in the future of our world.
Can soft power help strengthen women? Of course,
women are the best players of soft power. But to be
empowered to play, women must first enrich

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themselves with their own soft power of mercy, beauty,
wisdom and courage.
To show mercy is to embrace the unfortunate and to
give hope for the hopeless. Women’s beauty is not just
physical but spiritual and intellectual. Women shall
develop themselves for wisdom rather than sexual
appearance. And courage is to speak up for what is
right and to fight against what is wrong. It is with these
four virtues that women will break away from being
the passive victims of history and will become active
writers for human story. With mercy, beauty, wisdom
and courage, these four virtues, we women can
become good and strenghful peace makers for the
world！
21st
Century: She-Economy
Believe it or not, the 21st
century is a century for
she-economy! In fact, women made 85% of consumer
choices. It is expected that in the next decade, about
870 million women around the world will enter the job

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market and 822 million come from non-industrialized
countries. They will create work and start businesses
and the gender gap in earnings will be narrowed down.
Mobile and Internet technologies will help women run
businesses easier and overcome the legal or traditional
barriers that prevented them from participating.
In the Asia-Pacific region, women’s potential
remains largely underutilized. Collectively, the 21
countries of the Asia Pacific region lose between $42
to $46 billion of GDP annually by not tapping into
women’s economic potential.
Indeed, the era for she-economy has come! In 2009,
the total combined income of women in the world was
$13 trillion, and it is expected to add up $5 trillion in
2014. With good income women will become good
consumers. More products are designed and marketed
specifically for women, or suiting women’s taste.
Businesswomen certainly know better than men for
what women really like and need.
What are female characteristics in she-economy?
Compared to men, businesswomen tend to start
businesses from humanitarian perspective, caring more
about environmental protection and ecology, and sense
of beauty. More women in business mean more
humanity, more green economy, and more artistic

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interests. In a word, women tend to be the pivotal
power for the substantial development of the globe.
While her-economy pursuits for self-interest,
expansion and exploitation, she-economy reflects a
value of humanity, greenness, and benevolence. While
he-economy stresses on “hard power,” she-economy
elaborates “soft power.”
The women leadership in the 21st
century has to put
the priority of gender-specific target along with
she-economy into her agenda. I firmly believe that
with Feminism and soft power, women’s leadership
can change the world better. We women shall be
determined to lead our family, our society and our
world for a better future. The path is long and filled
with obstacles. We need friends but we do not rely on
others. We rely on ourselves. We make mission
impossible into mission possible. Above all, we write
her-stories into human history!

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Thank you.