Chen I-hsin (; born 30 October 1972) or Charles Chen is a Taiwanese politician.

Early life

Chen I-hsin was born in

Yunlin County Yunlin County (Mandarin pinyin: ''Yúnlín Xiàn''; Taigi POJ: ''Hûn-lîm-koān''; Hakka PFS: ''Yùn-lìm-yen'') is a county in western Taiwan. Yunlin County borders the Taiwan Strait to the west, Nantou County to the east, Changhua County t ...

on 30 October 1972. Chen completed a degree in politics at National Taiwan University and earned a master's degree from

SOAS University of London SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

Political career

Spokesperson of Kuomintang and Office of the President

Chen served as the spokesperson for 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 ...

, but left the position to return to SOAS and pursue doctoral studies in economics. By 2014, Chen had resumed his spokesperson duties, while also working for the Kuomintang's Culture and Communication Committee. In February 2015, he was named a spokesman for the

Office of the President Office of the President can refer to: * Office of the President of Brazil * Office of the President of the People's Republic of China (entity in the Office of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party) * Office of the President (Republi ...

, serving until 2016, when Ma Ying-jeou concluded his second term as president.

Presiding the first national language interpretation session in Legislation Yuan

Chen contested the 2020 legislative election as a party list candidate affiliated with the Kuomintang, and was seated to the

Tenth Legislative Yuan The 10th Legislative Yuan is the current session of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan, which began on 1 February 2020. Members were elected in the 2020 legislative election, in which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) retained majority status ...

. As the Development of National Languages Act in 2018 stipulates the government offices to provide the interpretation services for the citizens participating in administrative, legislative, and judicial procedures to freely choose to use their national languages, the

Legislative Yuan The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for 4-year terms by people of the Taiwan Area through a parallel v ...

activated the synchronized interpreter service for the parliament session in real time accordingly. On 27 September 2021, after following the steps to apply in advance with 3 Taiwanese interpreters been present ready,

Legislator A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for ex ...

Chen Po-wei Chen Po-wei (; born 10 July 1985) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the first ever Taiwan Statebuilding Party candidate to be elected to the Legislative Yuan, defeating Kuomintang incumbent Yen Kuan-heng in the 2020 Taiwanese legislative electi ...

of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party proceeded his scheduled questioning in

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, ...

during the session of Foreign and National Defense Committee. The Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng was communicated but rejected speaking Taiwanese, nor accepted the interpreter's real-time service at site, but brought the deputy minister Zong-hsiao Li as his own interpreter, and insisted in the 3-way translation pattern sentence by sentence. Chiu repeatedly interrupted the question process by asking Chen to speak

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

for easier communication, or the session time cannot be lengthened to accommodate the interpretation, however Li is not a linguistic professional, hence his translation contains contextual errors, so Chen, being the chairman host in duty, had to intervene when the argument occurred, and introduced the existing synchronized interpretation in progress as the solution same as the common conference practice in the other countries; nonetheless Chiu never picked up the earset, yet insisted his way till the session run out of time. Chen later apologized to the public for the good intention of practicing the national language law being turned into a linguistic communication tragedy, and condemned Chiu for "bullying" (), nevertheless Chiu denied the allegation and claimed that a language is a tool of communication. The parliamentary interpretation service were temporarily suspended afterwards pending on better communication in the future - consequently Kuan, the other MPs and media editorials such as the

Taipei Times The ''Taipei Times'' is the only printed daily English-language newspaper in Taiwan, and the third established there. Online competitors include the state-owned ''Focus Taiwan'' and ''Taiwan News''; ''The China Post'' was formerly a competit ...

commented that Language is not just a tool of communication as Chiu said, but also an identity of feelings and culture. Taipei City Councilor Miao Poya also explained that the multi-lingual working environment is essential for a healthy mind without the " Chinese Language Supremacy" () attitude to achieve the international level in diversity, equality and mutual respect for a modern state. He was considered a potential Kuomintang candidate for the Tainan mayoralty in the

2022 Taiwanese local elections Local elections will be held in Taiwan on 26 November 2022 to elect county magistrates (city mayors), county (city) councilors, township mayors, township councilors and chiefs of village (borough) in 6 municipalities and 16 counties (cities). Elect ...

, until March 2022, when the party chose to nominate .

References

1972 births Living people Alumni of SOAS University of London National Taiwan University alumni Political spokespersons Politicians of the Republic of China on Taiwan from Tainan Politicians of the Republic of China on Taiwan from Yunlin County Members of the 10th Legislative Yuan Kuomintang Members of the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan Party List Members of the Legislative Yuan Taiwanese expatriates in the United Kingdom {{Taiwan-KMT-politician-stub