John Wu or Wu Chih-yang (; born 8 February 1969) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the

Magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

Taoyuan County Taoyuan County () is under the administration of Changde, Hunan, Hunan Province, China. The Yuan River, a tributary of the Yangtze, flows through Taoyuan. It covers an area of 4441 square kilometers, of which is arable land. It is from Zhangji ...

from 2009 to 2014. Wu was the former

Chinese Professional Baseball League The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL; ) is the top-tier professional baseball league in Taiwan. The league was established in 1989 and played the first season in 1990. CPBL eventually absorbed the competing Taiwan Major League in 20 ...

(CPBL) commissioner.

Early life

Wu obtained his bachelor's and master's degree in law from

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

. He then obtained another law degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Taoyuan County Magistrate

2009 Taoyuan County Magistrate election

Wu was elected Magistrate of Taoyuan County on 5 December 2009 defeating

Cheng Wen-tsan Cheng Wen-tsan (; born 6 July 1967) is a Taiwanese politician. He is the first and incumbent Mayor of the newly established Taoyuan City, having served since 25 December 2014. Education Cheng received his bachelor's degree from the Department of ...

in the 2009 magisterial election as a

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 ...

candidate. He assumed the office on 20 December 2009.

Taoyuan County upgrade

In July 2014, it was announced that Taoyuan County would be renamed Taoyuan and reclassified as a

special municipality Special municipality may refer to: * Special municipality (Netherlands) There are twelve provinces of the Netherlands (), representing the administrative layer between the national government and the local municipalities, with responsibility fo ...

by the end of the year. The

county-administered city A county-administered city is a unit of administrative division in Taiwan. Under the administrative structure of Taiwan, it is at the same level as a township or a district. Such cities are under the jurisdiction of counties. It is also the lowes ...

, known officially as

Taoyuan City Taoyuan () is a special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality of the Taiwan, Republic of China (Taiwan) located in northwestern Taiwan, neighboring New Taipei City to the north-east, Yilan County, Taiwan, Yilan County to the south-e ...

, was to be renamed Taoyuan District.

2014 Taoyuan City mayoral election

Shortly before the reclassification of Taoyuan County as a special municipality, Wu ran for the Taoyuan mayoralty in the

2014 Taiwanese local elections The Taiwanese local elections of 2014, commonly known as the nine-in-one elections (), were held on Saturday, 29 November 2014, to elect the Municipal Mayors, Municipal Councilors, Chiefs of indigenous districts in municipalities, Councilors of i ...

, again facing Cheng Wen-tsan, and lost.

CPBL Commissioner

Wu became the commissioner of Taiwan's

in 2015, and was reelected in 2017 with unanimous support. During Wu's term, he further expanded CPBL from four teams to five teams, with the addition of

Wei Chuan Dragons The Wei Chuan Dragons () are a professional baseball team in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) that originally existed between 1990 and 1999. In 2019, negotiations regarding the franchise's revival and return to the CPBL took ...

. As Wu's term ended,

Tsai Chi-chang Tsai Chi-chang (; born 16 April 1969) is a Taiwanese politician. He was elected to the Legislative Yuan in Taichung's first constituency in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. He is currently the Deputy Speaker of Legislative Yuan, having served in th ...

became Wu's successor as CPBL commissioner in January 2021.

References

Party List Members of the Legislative Yuan Living people 1969 births Taiwanese politicians of Hakka descent Magistrates of Taoyuan County Kuomintang Members of the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan Harvard Law School alumni Members of the 9th Legislative Yuan Members of the 6th Legislative Yuan Members of the 7th Legislative Yuan Taoyuan City Members of the Legislative Yuan National Taipei University alumni Chinese Professional Baseball League commissioners {{Taiwan-KMT-politician-stub