Chen Chih-hsiung (; 18 February 1916 – 28 May 1963) was a

Taiwanese independence The Taiwan independence movement is a political movement which advocates the formal declaration of an independent and sovereign Taiwanese state, as opposed to Chinese unification or the status quo in Cross-Strait relations. Currently, Tai ...

activist.

Biography

Chen was born in what was known as ''Akō Chō'', a division of

Japanese Taiwan The island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu Islands, became a dependency of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. The sho ...

, in 1916. He studied Dutch at the Tokyo University of Foreign Languages, and was also fluent in English, Japanese, Malay,

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

and Mandarin. He was sent by the Japanese government to the Dutch East Indies in 1942, shortly after Japan had begun its occupation of the territory, to serve as a translator. Chen stayed in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

after the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and found work designing jewelry. He sided with

Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...

in the subsequent

Indonesian National Revolution The Indonesian National Revolution, or the Indonesian War of Independence, was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between the Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch Empire and an internal social revolution during Aftermath of WWII, postw ...

and was imprisoned by the Dutch for a year. After the revolution, Sukarno named Chen an honorary citizen of Indonesia. Chen later joined

Thomas Liao Thomas Liao (22 March 1910 – 9 May 1986) was a Taiwanese independence activist and founding leader of the Republic of Taiwan Provisional Government. Biography Thomas Liao was born in present-day Xiluo, Yunlin County, on 22 March 1910, to ...

's Formosa Democratic Independence Party and helped secure Liao a trip to the

Bandung Conference The first large-scale Asian–African or Afro–Asian Conference ( id, Konferensi Asia–Afrika)—also known as the Bandung Conference—was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place on 18–2 ...

held in 1955. The next year, Liao appointed Chen the ambassador to Southeast Asia upon the formation of the Japan-based . The Indonesian government eventually arrested Chen and rescinded his passport before deporting him. Chen then traveled to Switzerland and was granted citizenship there before moving to Japan to see Liao. The

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

forced Chen's return to Taiwan and asked him to cease his pro-independence advocacy. Despite the Kuomintang authorities' request, Chen founded another pro-independence organization in 1961. The

Taiwan Garrison Command The Taiwan Garrison Command () was a secret police/national security body which existed under the Republic of China Armed Forces on Taiwan. The agency was established at the end of World War II, and operated throughout the Cold War. It was di ...

arrested Chen for his actions the next year and imprisoned him in a facility on Qingdao Road in Taipei. In 1963, Chen became the first independence activist to be executed in Taiwan. Chen was survived by his wife Chen Ying-niang, whom he met in Indonesia, and three children.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date = November 2016 1916 births 1963 deaths Executed Taiwanese people Naturalised citizens of Switzerland People executed by Taiwan by firearm People from Pingtung County People of the Indonesian National Revolution Prisoners and detainees of the Netherlands Taiwan independence activists Taiwanese exiles Taiwanese people of Hoklo descent Taiwanese people imprisoned abroad Taiwanese revolutionaries Tokyo University of Foreign Studies alumni Taiwanese expatriates in Indonesia Taiwanese translators 20th-century translators