Q: American readers would find it hard to understand that you, as a Taiwanese president, are only allowed to come to the United States for 48 hours, and then only if it is a transit stop.

A: Indeed.

Q: There has reportedly been a drop-off in tourists from the mainland. Will that hurt your tourist industry?

A: We hope to have a more diverse source of tourists.

Q: China could bring more pressure on Taiwan if it chose to. They could frighten away your diplomatic allies by threatening to weaken your bonds with them. Are you worried about that?

A: If they do take economic measures to apply pressure to Taiwan, they will have to think about the price that they are going to pay. Because the surrounding countries will be looking very carefully at what measures China will take against Taiwan.

Q: So you think as far as your alliances go, they will stay as they are today?

A: We will do everything we can do to maintain those relations and make sure that our diplomatic allies feel that having diplomatic relations with Taiwan is worthwhile.

Q: Your predecessor, President Ma Ying-jeou, wanted to buy 66 F-16s from the United States. Even though 47 senators wrote in support of his request, nothing happened. Do you intend to repeat that request?

A: At the current stage what we need are surface ships, submarines and air defense systems, as well as defensive capabilities in terms of cybersecurity.

Q: I think Ma also asked for diesel submarines and got nowhere. Will you repeat that request?

A: We are trying to develop our own [submarines].

Q: When it comes to the U.S. election, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump — who would be better for Taiwan?

A: As the leader of a different country, it is not very wise for us to comment on the presidential election in the U.S.

Q: I understand that the focus of your program is domestic — that you want to raise wages, to give people more time off. But with a growth rate under 1 percent, how can you spur the economy while delivering increased social services?

A: There is no panacea for this. I think Taiwan’s economy needs an overall structural readjustment. Our new model focuses on innovation and research. This is different from our growth model in the past, which was centered on the manufacturing industry.

Q: Isn’t China your No. 1 trading partner?

A: China is still our largest trading partner; however, complementarity between our economies is decreasing. We had the ability to organize a manufacturing process, and then we moved our manufacturing capability to China to make use of their labor pool. But now the situation is very different. [Chinese] labor costs are increasing, and China has their own capability.

Q: So China has become a competitor of Taiwan?

A: They are more and more our competitors.

Q: I saw that you expressed disappointment over the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on the South China Sea. It held that Taiping Island, which you claim as part of Taiwan, is a rock, not an island, and thus cannot enjoy an exclusive economic zone. Will you abide by the ruling?

A: We will not accept their decision. There are a couple of reasons for that. Taiwan is an important interested party in this case, but we were not invited to participate in the proceedings. Secondly, we found it unacceptable that we were referred to as the Taiwan Authority of China. The third reason is that [Taiping Island really is] an island.

Q: You are the first woman in Asia who does not come from a political family to be elected president of a country. How did you do it?

A: I think that my emergence as a leader is closely related to the development of Taiwan’s democracy. Taiwan’s democracy was a gradual development. It was done from the bottom up. Therefore a lot of the more successful political leaders come from civil society, those that are closer to the grass-roots level of the public.

Q: It must have been difficult to be a woman leader in such a male-dominated society.

A: Yes, to a certain extent. But I think that the society and our democracy are mature enough to place emphasis on the quality and the value of the individual politician, rather than their gender. Some people will find it fashionable to have a woman leader, but I think the reason people chose me as the leader of this country is because my policies and my values suit the needs of Taiwan today. We represent people who want to have change in the society. For years, this place has been dominated politically by a single party, the Kuomintang. People now want the place to be more democratic. They want to place more emphasis on human rights and transparency in terms of government decision-making. This is different from the way the government conducted business in the days when this was pretty much an authoritarian place.

翻页见中文翻译（据台湾“中央社”）