Lai formally announces his choice of 52-year-old top diplomat Hsiao Bi-khin as his running mate for vice president.

William Lai, the front-runner for the presidency in Taiwan’s 2024 elections, has named Hsiao Bi-khim, the self-ruled island’s former envoy to the United States, as his running mate.

Lai, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the man who topped most opinion polls ahead of the Jan. 13 election, said Hsiao, 52, was the right person for the job.

In a post on his Facebook page, Lai said he would formally introduce Hsiao as his vice president on Monday afternoon.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it had accepted her resignation.

“I believe that Bi-khim is definitely an outstanding person when it comes to Taiwan’s diplomatic work today, and she is a rare diplomatic talent in our country,” Lai said.

“I am confident that together with Bi-khim in the last 50 days, we will succeed in uniting the people’s consensus and combining all forces to win the election and enable Taiwan to move forward on a steady path to continue to grow.”

Taiwan goes to the polls at a time when Beijing is increasingly asserting its claims to the democratic island, which it says is part of China. It has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal.

The DPP, which came to power in 2016 under President Tsai Ing-wen, said it was up to the Taiwanese people to decide their future.

Like Lai, Hsiao is despised by China, which has twice imposed sanctions on her, most recently in April, and called her an “independence advocate.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last week called Lai and Hsiao an “independence double act,” adding that Taiwan’s people are “very clear” about what their partnership means for the “cross-strait situation.” No further details were given.

China conducted military exercises around Taiwan in August after Lai returned from a trip Short visit in the USA. The Chinese military said its drills were a “grave warning against pro-Taiwan independence separatist forces colluding with external forces to provoke.”

Hsiao became Taipei’s de facto ambassador to the United States in 2020 and is widely seen as a well-connected diplomat who can deftly navigate geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, who has known Hsiao since the 1990s, said she was an “outstanding politician” and would give Lai’s diplomatic and security support.

“Bi-khim’s relationships in [Washington] DC will be invaluable to President Lai if elected. She will bring all these relationships into his government, and he doesn’t have them,” he told Reuters.

The United States is the island’s main international supporter and arms supplier, although like most countries it has no formal ties with Taipei.

The DPP’s smooth handling of its election candidates contrasts with efforts by Taiwan’s two main opposition parties to agree on a common ticket.

The main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which traditionally favors closer ties with Beijing, is in crisis dispute with the smaller Taiwan People’s Party over which of its candidates should run for president and which for vice president, after initially agreeing work together.

The deadline for registering presidential candidates with the Election Commission ends this Friday.

Born in Japan to a Taiwanese father and an American mother, Hsiao worked first in the office of then-President Chen Shui-bian, also of the DPP, and then as a party legislator.

Unusually in Taiwan, she uses the Taiwanese Hokkien spelling of her name in English to emphasize her identity as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.