Lien Chan

Family and academic career

Lien Chan's family originated in Zhangzhou, Fujian; his grandfather Lien Heng wrote the General History of Taiwan. According to a speech Lien gave at Houzaimen Primary School in Xi'an in 2005, during Japanese rule over Taiwan his grandfather sent his son Lien Chen-tung to mainland China; Lien Chen-tung later worked in Xi'an, which is why Lien Chan was born there in 1936, and his grandfather chose his name. During the war he attended primary schools in Xi'an and Chongqing, and he returned to Taiwan with his parents afterwards.

According to his résumé on the website of Taiwan's Executive Yuan, Lien graduated in political science from National Taiwan University in 1957, earned a master's degree in international law and diplomacy from the University of Chicago in 1961 and a doctorate in political science there in 1965, and then taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Connecticut. He returned to National Taiwan University as a visiting professor in 1968 and from 1969 to 1975 was professor and chair of the political science department and director of its graduate institute.

In government: from minister to premier

In 1975 Lien became ambassador to El Salvador. He went on to serve as director of the Kuomintang's youth affairs department and deputy secretary-general of the party, chairman of the Executive Yuan's Youth Commission (1978–1981), minister of transportation and communications (1981–1987), vice premier (1987–1988), foreign minister (1988–1990) and governor of Taiwan Province (1990–1993). In 1993 he became premier and also a vice chairman of the Kuomintang.

In Taiwan's first direct presidential election, in March 1996, Lien was elected vice president as Lee Teng-hui's running mate with 54.00 percent of the vote, serving as the ninth vice president from 20 May 1996 to 20 May 2000. He remained premier after the election, and 82 legislators led by Hau Lung-bin petitioned for a constitutional interpretation. In Interpretation No. 419 of 31 December 1996, the Council of Grand Justices held that the constitution did not expressly bar the vice president from also serving as premier, but that the arrangement was “not entirely consistent” with the constitutional design that the two posts be held by different people and should be “dealt with appropriately.” He remained premier until 1997.

The 2000 and 2004 elections

In March 2000 Lien and Vincent Siew ran for the Kuomintang and came third with 23.10 percent of the vote; the Democratic Progressive Party's Chen Shui-bian won, and the Kuomintang lost power for the first time. Criticism of Lee Teng-hui mounted within the party after the vote, Lee resigned as party chairman, and Lien succeeded him. In 2004 Lien ran on a joint ticket with People First Party chairman James Soong and lost to Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu by fewer than 30,000 votes.

The 2005 mainland visit and the Hu–Lien meeting

In April 2005 Lien led a Kuomintang delegation to mainland China as party chairman, visiting Nanjing, Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. On the morning of 29 April he spoke at Peking University, noting that his mother had studied in the 1930s on the campus that then belonged to Yenching University. That afternoon he met Chinese Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of the People—the first meeting between the two parties' top leaders since the Chongqing negotiations of 1945. Lien said it was “the highest-level” meeting between the two parties in 56 years.

Afterwards the two parties issued a press communiqué setting out five shared aims on the basis of upholding the “1992 Consensus” and opposing “Taiwan independence”: an early resumption of cross-strait negotiations; an end to the state of hostility and a peace agreement; comprehensive economic exchanges and an economic cooperation mechanism; consultations on Taiwan's participation in international activities; and a regular channel of communication between the two parties. A Xinhua commentary called the meeting “a major event in the history of relations between the two parties and in the history of cross-strait relations.” The Hong Kong scholar Wong Ka-ying argued that the main result was Beijing securing the Kuomintang's public endorsement of its position on the “1992 Consensus” and opposing independence, while the five points remained only aspirations of the two parties; he also noted that Chen Shui-bian had insisted before the trip that the “1992 Consensus” did not exist.

After the party chairmanship

Lien later became honorary chairman of the Kuomintang and chairman of the Cross-Strait Peace and Development Foundation. According to People's Daily's Global People magazine, by February 2014 he had visited the mainland 15 times since 2005, and from 2013 he met Xi Jinping several times.

In September 2015 Lien accepted an invitation to attend Beijing's military parade marking the 70th anniversary of victory in the war against Japan. Ma Ying-jeou's government and the Mainland Affairs Council objected, saying such events should be avoided. Meeting Xi on 1 September, Lien said that Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek had fought major battles on the front lines while Communist forces under Mao Zedong had pinned down Japanese and collaborationist troops behind enemy lines; Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said it could not accept the remarks, and former National Development Council minister Kuan Chung-ming was among those who publicly criticised him. In January 2023 Lien published a memoir in which, according to the Central News Agency, he expressed frustration that his efforts to institutionalise peaceful cross-strait relations had not yet borne fruit.