It was the image that launched a social media sensation: football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi hunched over a chess game set atop Louis Vuitton’s signature luggage. 

That 2022 campaign image broke the record at the time for most likes on Instagram. Now the world’s biggest luxury house, with more than €20bn in annual sales, is looking to capitalise once again on one of the sporting world’s biggest duos in a new campaign featuring rival tennis virtuosos Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. 

The pairing is a coup for Vuitton chief executive Pietro Beccari. It has been just over a year since he took on one of the luxury sector’s biggest jobs with a mandate to further grow the LVMH-owned brand — which had its origins as a 19th-century luggage-maker — by transforming it into a cultural juggernaut.

“There is no household in the world that doesn’t have [contact with] Louis Vuitton products,” Beccari tells the FT in a video interview from Paris. “There are not a lot of brands that can say they enter the lives of people like we do.”

We are already active in lifestyle and believe we need to be about much more than just buying bags’

Beccari is not just talking about sales of handbags and ready-to-wear fashion — though those more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates from HSBC. Now, under the guidance of LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault and Beccari’s leadership, Louis Vuitton is further pushing back luxury’s boundaries in a bid to reach an ever-wider audience.  

“We are in books, in writing, in editing. We are in music,” the 56-year-old Italian executive says. “We are very much in sports . . . so we are very much covering a spectrum of life that interests people. It is like a magnet for them to become attracted to the brand.”

Beccari’s popular approach to the luxury brand was epitomised by his appointment last year of musician and producer Pharrell Williams to design menswear. What Williams lacked in technical design knowledge he made up for in cultural cachet, transforming catwalk shows into entertainment events featuring elaborate stagings and musical guests such as Jay-Z. The appointment has divided the fashion world, however, with critics lamenting what they saw as the triumph of spectacle over craft at LVMH’s flagship brand. 

For Beccari, however, weaving a deepening web of overlaps between popular culture, entertainment and brand identity is strategic and key to the megabrand’s future: “For every show Pharrell has done so far, we have always had new songs coming out” — the latest of which was produced for Miley Cyrus and played for the first time at Louis Vuitton’s latest autumn/winter 2024 menswear show. 

Within the same season, “Pharrell also launched the cowboy hat and now you’re seeing that in the US just about everywhere. Even Beyoncé has an album supporting cowboy culture [for which Pharrell has also written a few songs]”, says Beccari. “These are examples of our brand in luxury, not just in selling bags, but having an influence on culture.”

However, the increasing ubiquity of Louis Vuitton presents its own challenge as the brand attempts to balance accessibility against losing the veneer of exclusivity that is essential to commanding the prestige and price points of luxury. “We’ll see if I’m good at it or not in two to three years . . . but this is an eternal dilemma,” says Beccari.

One of his bets is on creating limited distribution of entry-level products, such as sunglasses and fragrance, in order to create scarcity. This has seen “incredible success”, he notes. “Normally a successful perfume would be in 80,000 or 90,000 stores. We limit it to around 400.” (Louis Vuitton’s store network is much larger than luxury peers such as Hermès and Chanel).

Louis Vuitton’s control of its distribution network and policy of never discounting its products are another advantage, according to Beccari. He also points to its care system, which allows customers to bring back products purchased from the brand to be repaired. 

“We need to preserve our desirability despite our visibility and that’s the biggest challenge that we have,” Beccari says. “We are making sure that the levers we put in place will pay off in the long term, and I believe that this campaign [with Nadal and Federer] will help increase the desirability of the brand in the long run.”

Still, taking Louis Vuitton to the next level is being made more challenging due to a sector-wide slowdown in luxury sales following a multi-year boom during the pandemic. Brands with a broader, more aspirational client base such as Louis Vuitton have been hit harder by the slowdown than competitors like Hermès, which cater to the top tier of wealthy clients. 

The darkening outlook in the key Chinese market, which fuelled growth for much of the past decade, also presents a challenge to the sector as a whole. “Beccari comes at a pretty difficult time because the industry is going through quite a bit of a slowdown, and notably the rebound in Chinese consumption is not at the level most industry managers would have hoped for a few months ago,” says Erwan Rambourg, global head of consumer and retail research at HSBC. 

We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that’

Beccari, however, has a naturally competitive nature, having previously been a professional footballer in Italy’s second division in his early life, as well as a coach. Born in a small town in Italy’s Parma region, Beccari was recruited to LVMH from mass market shampoo-maker Henkel in 2006.

He quickly rose through the ranks at the luxury group, first leading fashion brand Fendi before being appointed CEO of Dior, the group’s second-biggest brand by sales, in 2018. Under his leadership, Dior’s sales quadrupled, according to HSBC estimates, by expanding its market share across women’s and men’s fashion, leather goods, jewellery and homewares. He also oversaw the renovation of Dior’s flagship at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, which includes a museum, restaurant and private suite. 

Beccari has similar ambitions to leverage Louis Vuitton’s pedigree to expand its offering in hospitality. It already operates an airport lounge in Doha and restaurants in Osaka, Chengdu and Seoul. A large-scale project on Paris’s Champs Elysées, still currently under construction, is widely expected to include a Louis Vuitton-branded hotel.

“We have plans in the Champs-Elysées — it is not a secret,” says Beccari. “We are already active in lifestyle and believe that we need to be about much more than just buying bags.”

With Federer and Nadal, Beccari is making good on a project he first conceived back in 2007, when he was executive vice-president of marketing and communications at Louis Vuitton, with Antoine Arnault, Bernard Arnault’s eldest son and then-director of communications at Louis Vuitton.

It is a revival of the Core Values campaign that first began in 2007 and ran into the 2010s. The latest iteration shows Federer and Nadal, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, trekking through the jagged peaks of Italy’s Dolomites mountain range, both sporting branded backpacks (Federer in a classic monogram Christopher style and Nadal in a monogram Eclipse version).

Was it difficult getting the two superstars together? “Not at all,” insists Beccari. “They are good friends and see each other privately. It was a rivalry that became a friendship. They are proud of it and I think they set an incredible example.”

“We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that,” Beccari continues, and the driving force behind LVMH’s sponsorship of this summer’s Paris Olympics. 

For the executive, Nadal and Federer epitomise the Olympic spirit. “I think nobody more than them represents this extreme, ferocious competition that becomes friendship, which is exactly what sports should be.”

Find out about our latest stories first — follow @financialtimesfashion on Instagram — and subscribe to our podcast Life & Art wherever you listen

Pro-Palestinian students locked arms as they braced for New York Police Department officers to raid Columbia University’s campus to dismantle encampments and remove protesters from Hamilton Hall on April 30.

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Pro-Palestinian students locked arms as they braced for New York Police Department officers to raid Columbia University’s campus to dismantle encampments and remove protesters from Hamilton Hall on April 30.

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At Columbia University, word was spreading among the student protesters who’d defied the university’s order to take down their pro-Palestinian encampment on a central lawn. Police were gathering outside the school’s locked gates. Arrests seemed imminent. It was the evening of April 30.

Allie Wong, a doctoral student, was off campus when she heard what was happening. She rushed there and found a way to sneak in.

Before the night was over, Wong would be one among nearly 300 protesters arrested at two New York City colleges. NPR spoke with six of them about their choice to risk arrest, discipline from their universities, and possibly their academic and professional futures.

Allie Wong said she knew what she was getting into.

“I ran like a bat out of hell,” she said, “and sprinted to Hamilton Hall,” the building that a group of students and people unaffiliated with the university had occupied the previous night in an escalation of their protest against Israel and the war in Gaza.

Wong linked arms with other students in front of the building. They were singing songs about peace when the police arrived to force their human chain apart.

Several blocks north, Bashir Juwara arrived at the City College of New York driven by a similar sense of responsibility. He’s the student body president at Hunter College, another campus within the City University of New York system. Hunter students were participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment at City College, and as their president, Juwara wanted to show support. He was live streaming the scene outside the school’s gates when police arrested him, along with 172 others there that night.

In the two weeks since, police have made some 4,000 arrests at pro-Palestinian encampments on dozens of college campuses across the country.

The arrests have rattled academia to its core, inviting criticism that schools are using force to repress the most significant student movement in recent history, but also support from people who see some aspects of the anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.

After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Columbia University graduate student Aidan Parisi got a tattoo — a watermelon slice — symbolizing Palestinian solidarity.

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After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Columbia University graduate student Aidan Parisi got a tattoo — a watermelon slice — symbolizing Palestinian solidarity.

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Wong, Juwara, and the other arrested students NPR spoke with all said they were conscious of the potential consequences of defying their universities. But they characterized their punishments as minor compared to the suffering that the Palestinians of Gaza are enduring. They all allege Israel is carrying out a genocide that they say they have a moral obligation to try to stop.

Israeli officials reject the genocide accusation, saying the intent of their military operation is not to wipe out Palestinians, but to wipe out Hamas and prevent a repetition of its Oct. 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 soldiers and civilians. Israel blames Hamas for the Gaza death toll — 35,000 people killed, according to local health authorities — saying the militant group embeds itself among civilians.

Some of the students NPR spoke with said they believed if they could force their universities to agree to their main demand — divestment from companies doing business with Israel — other institutions might follow, putting further pressure on Israel to end the war.

At Columbia, president Nemat Shafik refused to divest. She said the pro-Palestinian encampments had created a hostile environment on campus. Some Jewish students said they no longer felt safe because of explicit antisemitism that some student and non-student protesters had expressed. When Shafik asked the police to dismantle the protests on April 30, she said it was because they had turned destructive after students took over Hamilton Hall. At City College, Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said he called on the police because protesters – many of whom he said were unaffiliated with the university – had also tried to break into campus buildings, “creating an emergency situation.”

Student protesters insist that being critical of Israel does not make their movement antisemitic. And they say that accusation is aimed at tarnishing a peaceful anti-war movement.

Among the six Columbia and City College students that NPR spoke with after their April 30 arrests, two suffered injuries. Two of the Columbia students have either been suspended from their university programs or notified of the university’s intent to expel them. All who spoke to NPR said they have no regrets.

Here are those six students:

Allie Wong’s tattoo is of a sculpture titled “Non-violence” that stands outside New York’s United Nations Headquarters. It depicts the knotted barrel of a gun. “I’ve never experienced that kind of violence,” she said of the way NYPD officers carried out their arrests of Columbia University student protesters.

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Allie Wong’s tattoo is of a sculpture titled “Non-violence” that stands outside New York’s United Nations Headquarters. It depicts the knotted barrel of a gun. “I’ve never experienced that kind of violence,” she said of the way NYPD officers carried out their arrests of Columbia University student protesters.

Keren Carrión/NPR

Allie Wong, 38, doctoral student at Columbia Journalism School.

Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing.

Wong said she had attended a few campus protests in the months after the war started, but was not very active. A turning point came when Columbia’s president called on the police to clear protesters’ first encampment on April 18. Wong was outraged. She got more involved, and eventually decided she was willing to risk arrest facing off with police in front of Hamilton Hall. Her trespassing charge was dismissed this week.

“You know, I have a lot of things to contribute to this movement, but physical might is not one of them. So, at no point did I fight back. At no point did I resist. But it didn’t matter. The best way I can describe it is that feeling when you’re at the beach and you get hit by a wave that makes it so that you are no longer in control of your body. When they approached us, it was immediately using batons and shields to break us apart, as well as fists and arms. The first thing that I remember, especially in the context of my injuries, is getting pummeled in the head with an object. I don’t know what the object was. But I remember getting hit in the head and kind of taking a dizzy step back to regain my composure. And twice, I was thrown to the ground.

“I am privileged enough to know that what I risk by being arrested is nothing compared to what my peers risk… I’m not 19. I’m 38 years old and I already have had a career. If I am expelled from Columbia, if I am no longer allowed to get my Ph.D., I’ll be okay. Whereas other people, it might ruin their career. So perhaps that’s naïve of me, but that was the risk I was willing to take.

“The central message that’s important to me and important to those who were arrested and were protesting is that this is not about us, this is not about making us the story. It’s about putting the focus back on what is happening (in Gaza) and doing everything in our power with our voices to make that the central message.”

Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week.

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Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week.

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Basil Rodriguez, 24, Columbia master’s student in American Studies.

Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing.

Rodriguez is Palestinian-American, and has been protesting the war in Gaza since October. Rodriguez, who uses they/them pronouns, said they were angry at Columbia’s refusal to divest from companies doing business in Israel. They narrowly avoided arrest when police cleared students’ first encampment on April 18.

“That day, 108 students who I love, who I consider like family and friends, were arrested. I had been at the encampment since day one, and actually left the morning of those arrests to go feed my cat, and was on the train back when I started getting notifications that the arrests had started. I had this intense survivor’s guilt for not having been there with them. I felt like I had abandoned them. So that’s when I was a lot more conscious of the fact that I couldn’t leave the (second) encampment anymore until they arrested me. And I fully knew all of the risks of arrest. I really believe in this cause and I really believe it’s a just cause. And I was also prepared to face expulsion or suspension because to me, that’s an honor. To give anything up for my people is an honor because they are paying with their lives on the daily.

“This arrest has really emboldened me to continue to speak up for Palestine and for Palestinians — to continue to speak up against the ongoing genocide. Even when I was in the jail cell and reflecting on what I had done to get there, I had zero regrets. I wouldn’t change what I did at all. And I will continue to protest and continue to face whatever consequences are thrown at me, because this is bigger than me. This is bigger than any one of us.”

After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Aidan Parisi is facing expulsion from Columbia.

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After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Aidan Parisi is facing expulsion from Columbia.

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Aidan Parisi, 27, master’s student at the Columbia School of Social Work.

Arrested inside Hamilton Hall. Charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Facing expulsion.

Parisi has been a visible leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, at times leading protests. In early April, Parisi, who uses they/them pronouns, was suspended after refusing to cooperate with the university’s investigation into an event that the university said featured speakers “known to support terrorism and promote violence.” The event was hosted by the student group that has been calling on Columbia to divest. Parisi is a member of that group, but told NPR they did not organize the event, and that they believe in non-violence. Despite being restricted from campus, Parisi was a regular presence at the pro-Palestinian encampments. But they said they avoided actions that might bring further discipline. On April 30, Parisi changed their mind, and was among the students who occupied Hamilton Hall.

“I was just not really seeing where I belonged in the movement. I was worried that I wouldn’t bring anything to it. I was kind of having an existential crisis. And then I saw a video online, just like many of the videos I’ve seen over the past seven months, of children brutally bombed and murdered by Israel. And something just clicked in my mind and I realized that I could give a little bit more and I could risk a little bit more.

“This expulsion is not going to be the end of my studies. This is not going to be the end of my career. I hope to go to law school and deal with situations just like what’s going on in Gaza, with humanitarian law, or even looking into protest law. And I’m definitely going to fight my expulsion. I mean, I don’t want to waste the $40,000 of student loans I’ve already taken out. No matter what, I will fight this. I’ll fight my suspension, my eviction, my potential expulsion. I will fight all of this to set the precedent that Columbia cannot silence our voices, that they cannot silence a movement — and not just our movement, but any future movements. And that’s why I’ve remained adamant about fighting.”

Bashir Juwara said that as a student body president, he felt a responsibility to advocate for his classmates’ right to protest.

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Bashir Juwara said that as a student body president, he felt a responsibility to advocate for his classmates’ right to protest.

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Bashir Juwara, 24, Hunter College undergraduate student body president.

Arrested at City College. Charged with trespassing and walking in the roadway.

Juwara live streamed the scene of the protest at City College, approaching NYPD officers blocking the entrance to campus and peppering them with questions about why they were there. As a student body president, he said he felt a responsibility to ask. When the arrests began, an officer knocked his phone out of his hand in the middle of his broadcast.

“I actually had a conversation with the cop that arrested me. He was asking, is it really worth it? I said, is it really worth it? Is that a genuine question that you asked? But then I described to him why I did what I did, because I believe that students should be protected. Students should have a right to peaceful protests and assembly. It’s their constitutional rights.

“CUNY gave me an opportunity that not many schools gave me. When I first arrived, I was undocumented. CUNY offered me a scholarship at a community college. And then by the time I transferred to Hunter College, I had my legal documentation. CUNY gave me the opportunity to develop as a student leader. This is something that I am incredibly grateful for. But when I was arrested, I had to rethink. Does CUNY actually support students that learn things in the classroom and try to use what they learn to stand up for what they believe in? After I was arrested, some of that I had to rethink.

“As a student leader, I’m trying to get students that were involved in the encampment to have a meeting for negotiations with the chancellor’s office, because I don’t think the negotiations should be scrapped just because the encampment has been destroyed by brutal force by NYPD. I think that is really important — to show that we can still find a way to negotiate. That is my next step.”

Laith Shalabi was arrested linking arms at the encampment at the City College of New York.

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Laith Shalabi was arrested linking arms at the encampment at the City College of New York.

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Laith Shalabi, 22, first-year student at the CUNY School of Law.

Arrested linking arms at the City College encampment. Charged with trespassing.

As a Palestinian-American with family in the West Bank, Shalabi said he’s always felt deep guilt over the privileges he enjoys that his family there does not. Last fall, a passerby recorded a video of Shalabi tearing down fliers on his campus featuring the photos of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas. He told NPR that he did it in “a moment of frustration” over the many Palestinian children killed by Israel’s bombardment, and the many others that Israel has held without charges but whose detentions he said have historically generated less public sympathy. He said he doesn’t regret removing the fliers, but said he wouldn’t do it again. After the video was shared online, Shalabi was doxxed, and said he and his family started getting threatening emails and phone calls.

“I’m still a student. I still have a home. I have somewhere to sleep at night. I have food. I’m privileged. I’m 22, and 22 is an age a lot of Palestinians don’t reach. And so for us over here with these protests, we are fighting for people who are our age. There’s not a single university left standing in Gaza. They’re all destroyed. Thinking about each one individually, on a human level, and that each university had a student body. Each university had a system of professionals and academics ready to transform these kids’ lives to contribute amazing things to society – to become doctors, become engineers, become lawyers, become whatever their hearts desired. And now these vehicles of life have been taken from them. My arrest is an extremely small price to pay in comparison.”

Marie Adele Grosso, 19, a sophomore at Barnard College, was arrested twice. First at the Columbia encampment that police dismantled on April 18. And again outside Hamilton Hall on April 30.

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Marie Adele Grosso, 19, a sophomore at Barnard College, was arrested twice. First at the Columbia encampment that police dismantled on April 18. And again outside Hamilton Hall on April 30.

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Marie Adele Grosso, 19, sophomore at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing. Suspended.

Grosso spent time as a child living in the West Bank, where her mother worked as a legal advocate and her father researching food access. She was arrested at Columbia’s first pro-Palestinian encampment on April 18. The university suspended her for that, but lifted the suspension. She was suspended again after her second arrest on April 30. Her trespassing charge was dismissed this week.

“I have several injuries as well as bruising all over my body. My shoulder dislocated. But I was able to put it back in, so I didn’t really need to go to the hospital for that. I have a wrist injury that’s a little undefined and then I have some form of back injury.

“With the charge, I will likely not be able to do one of the jobs I was hoping to do this summer. That’s substitute teaching. They have a policy for the protection of kids, obviously. I’m disappointed, because I love the kids, trying to help them learn. I love watching them grow. But it’ll be okay. I have other jobs.

“We’re watching a genocide unfold on social media, and in a lot of ways, we’re helpless. And it’s a moral obligation to do everything and anything we can to stop it. I can’t imagine watching it and being able to sit by.”

NYPD officers clear the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University on April 30.

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NYPD officers clear the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University on April 30.

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Taiwan’s incoming president Lai Ching-te will start his first term on Monday under pressure to raise social spending and tackle deepening economic inequality while at the same time meeting US demands to shore up defences against an increasingly assertive China.

Every Taiwanese leader since the start of free, direct presidential elections in 1996 has taken office with a message aimed at Beijing, which claims the island as its own and threatens to annex it by force if necessary.

But against the backdrop of soaring tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the demands on Lai to balance Taiwan’s security risks with assurances of safeguarding its independence are greater than on most of his predecessors.

“There have been extensive exchanges about his inaugural address with Washington, and the US has been communicating some guidelines,” said a person familiar with the discussions.

Washington is keen to ensure that Lai will stick to the China policy line of his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen, who won broad international support for her cautious handling of often turbulent cross-Strait relations, several people in Lai’s Democratic Progressive party (DPP) said.

A US official said the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s quasi-embassy in Taipei, has been in contact with officials in Taiwan about Lai’s inauguration speech and to underscore long-standing US policy on cross-Strait issues.

“In this upcoming term, we’re not looking to shake things up or change things . . . ‘Status quo’ has been our byword,” the official said.

Lai will seek to reassure the US with a commitment to decisively strengthen Taiwan’s defences, including raising military budgets, revamping its military force structure and focusing on cost-effective and mobile weapons systems and more robust civil defence.

But he is also keenly aware of the need to address burning economic concerns among many Taiwanese, especially the young. While Lai’s government intends to raise the defence budget from 2.5 per cent of GDP this year to 3 per cent, members of his team said his top priority would be domestic reform.

Decades of economic policy have focused on supporting Taiwan’s globally leading high-tech industries such as chipmaking, leaving other parts of the economy behind. This has led to growing inequality, with 68 per cent of the population below the average income, a senior DPP official said.

“We need to explain to the US the importance of social solidarity for the sake of our national unity,” the official said.

Lai is likely to struggle building such unity from day one. He was elected with just 40 per cent of the vote in a three-way race in January and lacks a DPP majority in the legislature.

He has pledged to prioritise policies with cross-party support. But hopes for building consensus dwindled on Friday after parliament descended into brawls over opposition proposals to expand its power via bills that would allow the legislature to find government officials guilty of contempt — a criminal charge punishable with prison time. The DPP called such legal changes unconstitutional.

Lai’s policies include a reform of the underfunded national health insurance, an expansion of subsidised childcare and care for the elderly. Beyond social spending, he will also seek to shift economic policy from incentives for certain industries to creating more service sector jobs and stimulating domestic consumption.

“To give these people a sense of wellbeing and security, we need to focus on social investment and build a more universal social security system,” the DPP official said. “There will not be too much pushback against that from the opposition — they may even want to outdo us on spending on that.”

Lai has recruited a number of private-sector executives into his cabinet, most prominent among them JW Kuo, an entrepreneur and chair of semiconductor industry supplier Topco, a departure from Tsai’s preference for academics.

But in the sensitive areas of China policy, national security and defence, the incoming president has retained almost Tsai’s entire team. Her foreign minister Joseph Wu will head up Lai’s National Security Council while NSC head Wellington Koo will become defence minister.

This personnel continuity will offer stability, DPP officials hope, as China has escalated military manoeuvres close to Taiwan’s waters and airspace in recent weeks.

The new president intends to express readiness for dialogue — in line with Tsai’s practice — in his inaugural address in a sign of goodwill to Beijing, which has denounced him as a “dangerous separatist”.

But Lai is also expected to restate principles outlined by Tsai that Taiwan is committed to its democratic system, that the Republic of China — its official name — and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other and that Taiwan will resist annexation or encroachment on its sovereignty. Taiwan’s future must be decided in accordance with the will of its people, Lai will add.

Despite maintaining Tsai’s national security personnel and approach to China, some observers believe Lai’s tenure could look very different in practice. He has shown a penchant for political battle during his 28-year career in politics, in stark contrast to Tsai, a controlled, soft-spoken former trade policy official.

“As we deal with the challenges we face, we will also have to find our own voice”, said a senior member of the incoming administration, adding that Lai would “lay out his vision in his own words”.

As mayor of the municipality of Tainan, Lai’s insistence on abolishing slush funds for city councillors triggered a revolt in the local legislature.

On a visit to Shanghai in 2014, he told Chinese scholars that Taiwanese independence was not an idea that originated with the DPP but a long-standing aspiration of the Taiwanese people, and that only if Beijing understood could the two sides find common ground — a bluntness unheard of from other visiting Taiwanese politicians.

In 2017, then Tsai’s premier, he infamously described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”.

“Lai’s brain is not Tsai’s brain,” said a person who has known the incoming president for many years.

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington