Lien Chan was the Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government from 1990 to 1993, Premier of the Republic of China from 1993 to 1997, Vice President of the Republic of China from 1996 to 2000, and was the Chairman of the Kuomintang from 2000 to 2005, apart from various ministerial posts he had held.
31 Facts About Lien Chan
2.
Lien Chan is highly credited after holding a groundbreaking visit to Mainland China in his capacity as the Chairman of the Kuomintang to meet with the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao on 29 April 2005, the first meeting between the two party leaders after the end of Chinese Civil War in 1949, which subsequently helped thaw the long-stalled cross-strait relations.
3.
Lien Chan was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China as the only child of Taiwanese father Lien Chen-tung and Chinese mother Chao Lan-k'un.
4.
Lien Chan received a PhD in political science in 1965 from the University of Chicago and married former Miss Republic of China Fang Yu the same year.
5.
Lien Chan is currently a Trustee Emeritus on the Board of Trustees to the University of Chicago.
6.
Lien Chan returned to Taiwan in 1968 to become visiting professor of political science at the National Taiwan University, serving as chairman of the Political Science Department and dean of the Graduate Institute of Political Science the following year.
7.
Lee and Lien Chan won the election for the presidency and the vice-presidency respectively.
8.
Lien Chan spearheaded the constructions of Cross-Island Highway, a series of highways that connected the eastern side of the island to the western side of the island.
9.
Lien Chan began the reconstruction to the Military dependents' villages which were temporary shelters designated for the military personnel and their families when the Kuomintang first moved to Taiwan.
10.
Lien Chan established diplomatic relations with Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Grenada, Belize, Republic of Guinea-Bissau and reestablished diplomatic relations with Kingdom of Lesotho, Republic of Liberia and the Republic of Nicaragua.
11.
Lien Chan established the foundations for the Internet in Taiwan via research centers established under the National Science Council.
12.
Lien Chan revised and deregulated the regulation on cable television sector that allowed for multiple players in the television and cable sectors.
13.
Lien Chan took an active role as a representative of Lee Teng-hui in quasi-official diplomacy in the mid-1990s.
14.
One of the greatest moments of his career is his 1995 meeting with Vaclav Havel, in which Lien Chan likened the democratic reforms of the Lee Teng-hui administration as being similar to the Velvet Revolution.
15.
Lien Chan held forums to discuss erasing the KMT's image as a corrupt institution and Lien promised to give up property seized by the KMT after the Japanese exodus.
16.
Lien Chan's body was formally dressed in suite and tie and entangled in a fishnet.
17.
In December 2010, Lien Chan was awarded the Confucius Peace Prize in China, which was instituted as a reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Liu Xiaobo.
18.
Lien Chan's meeting with Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao was the highest level exchange since Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in Chongqing on August 28,1945, to celebrate the victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War and discuss a possible truce in the impending Chinese Civil War.
19.
Lien Chan revisited Houzaimen Primary School, which he attended 60 years ago.
20.
Lien Chan visited the Great Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor.
21.
Later that day, Lien Chan arrived in Shanghai, where he attended a banquet hosted by Shanghai CCP Party Secretary General Chen Liangyu.
22.
In October 2005, Lien Chan made his second visit to the mainland.
23.
Lien Chan visited Shenyang, Liaoning to pay homage to his maternal grandmother's tomb at Lansheng Village and the school where his mother studied.
24.
Lien Chan paid tribute to his ancestors in Zhangzhou and received an honorary doctor's degree from Xiamen University in Xiamen.
25.
Lien Chan was welcomed by Xia Baolong, deputy secretary of Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at the Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport.
26.
In Hangzhou, Lien Chan met with provincial government leaders and visited the West Lake.
27.
Two days later, Lien Chan visited Beijing to attend the first Cross-Straits Economic Trade and Culture Forum.
28.
Lien Chan met with CCP general secretary Hu Jintao at the forum, where both underscored the peaceful development of relations between the two sides.
29.
In February 2013, Lien Chan visited Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping, the newly elected General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
30.
Lien Chan met with Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Dai Bingguo, Wang Yi, Chen Yunlin and Zheng Lizhong.
31.
Lien Chan's family arrived in Taiwan during the Emperor Kang Xi era and had settled in Tainan residing in an area called Ma Bing Ying; which was the former training ground of the Zheng Cheng Gung forces in his campaign against the Dutch.