Editing Chen Shui-bian (section)

====Re-election campaign====
{{See also|2004 Taiwanese presidential election|3-19 shooting incident}}
[[File:2004ROCPresident.svg|thumb|100px|Election results by county (Green: DPP, Blue: Lien-Soong)]]
In late 2003, he signed a controversial referendum bill, which he had supported but was heavily watered down by the [[pan-Blue coalition|pan-Blue]] majority legislature. One concession that the legislature made was to include a provision for an emergency defensive referendum and during the legislative debates it was widely believed that this clause would only be invoked if Taiwan was under imminent threat of attack from China as has been so often threatened. Within a day of the passage of the referendum bill, Chen stated his intention to invoke this provision, citing PRC's over 450 missiles aimed directly at the Taiwanese. Pan-Blue believed that his bill was only intended to benefit Chen in the coming election, as whether PRC removes the missiles would not be pressured or decided by referendum result.

[[Image:Presidential Building, Taiwan (0757).JPG|thumb|Images of Chiang Kai-shek were removed from public buildings. Chen's portrait was hung at a location in the presidential office that previously displayed a portrait of Chiang.]]

In October 2003, Chen flew to New York City for a second time. At the [[Waldorf-Astoria Hotel]], he was presented with the Human Rights Award by the [[International League of Human Rights]]. In the subsequent leg of the trip to Panama, he met with US Secretary of State [[Colin Powell]] and shook hands with him. This high-profile trip raised Chen's standing in opinion polls ahead of his opponent Lien Chan for the first time at 35%, according to Agence France-Presse.

His use of the referendum in combination with his talk of a new constitution lead many among his reunification critics to believe that he would attempt to achieve [[Taiwan independence]] in his second term by invoking a referendum to create a new constitution that would formally separate Taiwan from any interpretation of China. This caused the government of the United States to follow the lead of Chen's political critics and issue a rare rebuke of Chen's actions.

[[3-19 shooting incident|Chen was shot in the stomach]] while campaigning in the city of [[Tainan City|Tainan]] on Friday, 19 March 2004, the day before polls opened on Saturday. His vice-president [[Annette Lu]] was also reportedly shot in the leg in the same incident. The following day, Chen narrowly won the election with a margin of less than 30,000 votes out of 12.9&nbsp;million votes counted. Both of his referendum proposals were rejected due to insufficient turnout, in part by the pan-Blue boycott. Those that did vote for the referendum overwhelmingly favored it. Pan-Blue candidate [[Lien Chan]] refused to concede and sued both for a recount and for a nullification of the outcome while supporters held a week-long protest led by the pan-Blues front of the [[Presidential Building (Taiwan)|presidential office]] in Taipei. He also claimed that the shooting was staged by Chen to win sympathy votes.

Throughout the election, Chen planned to hold a referendum in 2006 on a new [[Constitution of the Republic of China|constitution]] to be enacted upon the accession of the 12th-term president in May 2008. After the election, he sought to reassure critics and moderate supporters that the new constitution would not address the issue of sovereignty, and that the current constitution was in need of comprehensive reform after more than a decade of patchwork revision.