Chiang Pin-kung

Early life and study in Japan

Chiang Pin-kung was born on 16 December 1932 in Caotun, Nantou, Taiwan, and was educated in Japanese under colonial rule. According to Taiwanese media biographies, he graduated in land administration from the Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Commerce (now National Taipei University), worked for the Nantou County government after passing the civil service examination, and at 28 won one of the Kuomintang's first Sun Yat-sen scholarships to study in Japan, earning a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of Tokyo.

Trade official

Chiang spent much of his career on Taiwan's external trade, serving as secretary-general of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade, vice minister and then minister of economic affairs. According to Global Views Monthly, as vice minister in 1990 he pushed Taiwan's application to join the GATT/World Trade Organization, attended ten APEC ministerial meetings for Taiwan over seven years, and represented Taiwan's leader at the APEC leaders' meetings in 1998 and 1999. From 1996 he chaired the Council for Economic Planning and Development.

After the Kuomintang lost power in 2000, Chiang, an at-large legislator, was elected vice president of the Legislative Yuan, and later became a vice chairman of the Kuomintang.

The 2005 mainland visit

In late March 2005, at the request of party chairman Lien Chan, Chiang led a Kuomintang delegation to the mainland as party vice chairman. He visited Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum in Nanjing and in Beijing met Chen Yunlin, head of the CPC and State Council Taiwan affairs offices—the first such meeting between the two parties since 1949. At the former Nationalist presidential office in Nanjing he wrote “ice-breaking journey” in the guestbook. A month later Lien Chan visited the mainland and met Hu Jintao.

SEF chairman

After Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008, Chiang became chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation and resumed talks with ARATS president Chen Yunlin. Their first meeting, in Beijing in June 2008, produced documents on weekend charter flights and mainland tourism to Taiwan; during Chen's visit to Taiwan that November they signed agreements on air transport, shipping, postal services and food safety. According to Taiwanese media, Chiang held eight rounds of talks with Chen and signed 18 agreements, including the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). He stepped down as SEF chairman on 27 September 2012.

On 8 December 2018 Chiang lost consciousness at a dinner with friends in Taipei, and he died at Mackay Memorial Hospital on 10 December, aged 86. A spokesman for the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office said he had upheld the “1992 Consensus,” opposed “Taiwan independence” and made important contributions to the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.