Chen Shui-bian (born October 12, 1950) is a former Taiwanese politician who was the President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008. Chen, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has traditionally been supportive of Taiwan independence, ended more than fifty years of Kuomintang (KMT) rule in Taiwan. He is colloquially referred to as A-Bian (阿扁; Ābiǎn; Taiwanese: 阿扁仔 A-píⁿ-à).

Chen entered politics in 1980 as a lawyer and came to be known for his forceful arguments; out of concern for reformation of the political system, Chen entered politics as a member of the Tangwai movement and was elected to the Taipei City Council in 1981. Chen was jailed in 1985 for libel as the editor of the weekly pro-democracy magazine Neo-Formosa, following publication of an article critical of Elmer Feng, a college philosophy professor who was later elected a Kuomintang legislator. After being released, Chen was elected a member of the Legislative Yuan in 1989, and Mayor of Taipei in 1994.

Chen won the 2000 presidential election on March 18 with only 39% of the vote as a result of a split of factions within the Kuomintang, when James Soong ran for the presidency as an independent against the party nominee Lien Chan, becoming the first and only non-Kuomintang to hold the office of president. Although Chen received high approval ratings during the first few weeks of his term, his popularity sharply dropped due to alleged corruption within the Chen administration and the inability to pass legislation against the opposition KMT, who controlled the Legislative Yuan. In 2004, during his re-election campaign, Chen was shot while campaigning.