He returned home to take a job in the …

He returned home to take a job in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, becoming, Tsai says, the chief drafter of a 1960 law that opened Taiwan to foreign investment and helped usher in an export-driven economic boom that lasted decades. In 1965, the year after Joe was born as the first of four children, his grandfather and father established Tsar & Tsai, a law firm that became a go-to shop for international clients looking to do business in Taiwan. “I’m Chinese,” Tsai says. “I grew up in a very culturally Chinese environment.” He spoke Mandarin as a child, and his parents talked about returning to visit the mainland. At the time, the KMT saw itself as China’s rightful ruler, a status then recognized by most of the West. “My upbringing is always that there is one China,” he says.