Beijing called him a "troublemaker" and a dangerous "separatist". Now he will be Taiwan's next president.
China's claims over Taiwan are not new - it sees the island as part of its territory and Xi Jinping has made unification a goal. But the threats have ramped up in the past year.
And yet, despite renewed warnings from China against voting for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), millions of Taiwanese headed to the polls under warm, sunny skies on Saturday to do just that.
They picked their 64-year-old vice-president, a doctor-turned politician, William Lai Ching-te, to lead Taiwan through its testy relationship with China.
It's an unprecedented third term for the DPP, a party China sees as skirting too close to its unquestionable red line - Taiwanese independence.
How Mr Lai manages Beijing, and how Beijing reacts to him, will determine his presidency.
Mr Lai has promised that his term will be a continuation of the eight years of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen.
Even in his Saturday address, he chose his words carefully and offered dialogue and co-operation.
On the campaign trail he has repeated her formula over and over that there is "no need to declare independence, because Taiwan is already an independent sovereign state - its name is the Republic of China - Taiwan".
However, Mr Lai has long been considered much more of a firebrand than the cautious President Tsai.
He came up through the DPP's ranks as a member of the "new wave" faction, which advocated the formal declaration of Taiwan independence.
Mr Lai and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim are deeply disliked and mistrusted by Beijing, which has banned them both from travel to mainland China and Hong Kong.
Ms Hsiao, the daughter of an American mother and a Taiwanese father, was most recently Taiwan's representative to the US.
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