10 Facts About Tsay Ting-kuei

Tsay Ting-kuei is a Taiwanese civil engineering professor, political activist, and former government official.

Tsay Ting-kuei attended National Cheng Kung University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a master's degree in 1973.

Tsay Ting-kuei then moved to the United States and earned his Ph.

Tsay Ting-kuei returned to Taiwan in 1990, a few years after the end of martial law on the island, to take up a new position as a professor at National Taiwan University.

In 2002, Tsay Ting-kuei was named vice-chairman of the Executive Yuan's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission.

Tsay Ting-kuei served in that position until 2004, after which he became vice-chairman of the Environmental Protection Administration until 2005, and took up the position of acting chairman in between the terms of Chang Juu-en and Chang Kuo-long.

In October 2008, Tsay Ting-kuei led the Taiwan Association of University Professors in a hunger strike outside the Legislative Yuan building in support of relaxation of the procedures for public referendums.

Tsay Ting-kuei's goal was to make it easier for a Taiwan independence referendum to be proposed and conducted.

Tsay Ting-kuei eventually created the Taiwan Referendum Alliance in support of this goal.

In late February 2014, about a week before the 67th anniversary of the February 28 Incident, Tsay Ting-kuei led a group of fellow Taiwan Referendum Alliance members in removing a statue of Sun Yat-sen from Tang De-jhang Memorial Park in Tainan, a park named for a local lawyer executed during the military crackdown which followed the February 28 Incident.