Yao Chia-wen (; born 15 June 1938) is a

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, ...

politician. He was the second

chairperson The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the

Democratic Progressive Party The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a Taiwanese nationalist and centre-left political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Controlling both the Republic of China presidency and the unicameral Legislative Yuan, it is the majori ...

(DPP), serving from 1987 to 1988. He was a member of 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 ...

from 1993 to 1996, and president of the

Examination Yuan The Examination Yuan is the civil service commission branch, in charge of validating the qualification of civil servants, of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It has a president, a vice president, and seven to nine members, all ...

between 2002 and 2008.

Early life

Born in Wabi Town, Shōka District,

Taichū Prefecture was one of the administrative divisions of Japanese Taiwan. The prefecture consisted of modern-day Taichung City, Changhua County and Nantou County. It is also the origin of the name of modern-day Taichung. The Taichū Prefecture was the scene ...

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 ...

(modern-day

Hemei Hemei Township is an urban township in northwestern Changhua County, Taiwan. It is bordered by the Dadu River to the north, Shengang and Xianxi to the west, Lukang and Xiushui to the south, and Changhua City to the east. History An early nam ...

Changhua Changhua (Hokkien POJ: ''Chiong-hòa'' or ''Chiang-hòa''), officially known as Changhua City, is a county-administered city and the county seat of Changhua County in Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. For many centuries the site was h ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

), Yao has eleven younger siblings. In 1957, he started working as a clerk in the Bureau of Telecommunications, which is now the

Chunghwa Telecom Chunghwa Telecom Company, Ltd. () (, ) is the largest integrated telecom service provider in Taiwan, and the incumbent local exchange carrier of PSTN, Mobile, and broadband services in the country. History Chunghwa Telecom was founded as ...

. Yao studied law at the

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 ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

. He passed the

bar exam A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associa ...

in 1966 and got his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in law two years later. Yao co-founded the "Legal Advice Center for Citizens" () in 1972 after attending the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

as a

visiting scholar In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

. In 1975, he and

Lin Yi-hsiung Lin Yi-hsiung (; born 24 August 1941) is a politician from Taiwan. He was a major leader of the democratization movement in Taiwan. He graduated from the Department of Law of National Taiwan University. He was first exposed to politics in 1976 ...

served as

defense lawyer A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer (mostly barristers) specializing in the defense of individuals and companies charged with criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained, while others are employed by the various ...

s for . Four years later, Yao represented

Yu Teng-fa Yu Teng-fa (; 21 September 1904 – 13 September 1989) was a Taiwanese politician. His family's influence in Kaohsiung began with his own political career. Yu's daughter in-law Yu Chen Yueh-ying succeeded his daughter Huang Yu Hsiu-luan in the Le ...

. Yao is married to

Chou Ching-yu Chou Ching-yu (; born 12 June 1944) is a Taiwanese politician. Political career Chou served in the National Assembly (Republic of China), National Assembly from 1981 to 1992. In her first electoral win, she earned the highest number of total vo ...

, who is a former magistrate of

Changhua County Changhua County (Mandarin Pinyin: ''Zhānghuà Xiàn''; Wade-Giles: ''Chang¹-hua⁴ Hsien⁴''; Hokkien POJ: ''Chiang-hòa-koān'' or ''Chiong-hòa-koān'') is the smallest county on the main island of Taiwan by area, and the fourth smallest ...

Political career

Yao called for the abolition of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

in his book ''Maintaining and Amending the Law'' () published in 1978. In 1979, Yao was arrested and sentenced to a 12-year prison for his involvement in the

Kaohsiung Incident The Kaohsiung Incident, also known as the Formosa Incident, the Meilidao Incident, or the ''Formosa Magazine'' incident,tang was a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations that occurred in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on 10 December 1979 during Taiwan's ...

. He served in prison for seven years and became the chairperson of the

after he was released. Under his chairmanship, the party adopted the "Program for the Sovereign Independence of Taiwan" (). In 1992, Yao joined the Welfare State Alliance () faction of the DPP founded by

Frank Hsieh Frank Hsieh Chang-ting (; born May 18, 1946) is a Taiwanese politician and former defense attorney. A cofounder of the Democratic Progressive Party, he has served on the Taipei City Council, the Legislative Yuan, as the mayor of Kaohsiung City ...

. He was elected a member of the

the same year, but was not re-elected in 1995. In 1997, Yao started teaching at

National Tsing Hua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU; ) is a public research university in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. National Tsing Hua University was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, the then-president of the university, Mei Yiqi, and other ...

as an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

. He worked as a lawyer again in 1999, as he ran unsuccessfully for legislator again in 1998.

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Chen Shui-bian Chen Shui-bian (; born 12 October 1950) is a retired Taiwanese politician and lawyer who served as the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000 to 2008. Chen was the first president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) whic ...

appointed Yao as one of his Senior Advisors in 2000. Two years later, he was appointed as the President of the

. After a contentious but successful confirmation, media coverage focused heavily on alleged extramarital affairs. Yao was replaced by the Ma Ying-jeou government in 2008 after Chen Shui-bian's administration left office. Yao was named a senior adviser to

Tsai Ing-wen Tsai Ing-wen (; born 31 August 1956) is a Taiwanese politician serving as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 2016. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tsai is the first female president of Taiwan. She served as ...

in October 2016.

Political ideology

Yao supports the

Taiwan independence movement 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 ...

. He was an editor of the

Formosa Magazine ''Formosa Magazine'', also known as Mei-li-tao (), was a magazine created by Tangwai individuals in Taiwan during the summer of 1979. It opposed the Kuomintang's political monopoly in the Republic of China government. A police raid of the ''F ...

, which is associated with the

Tangwai The ''Tangwai'' movement, or simply ''Tangwai'' (), was a loosely knit political movement in Taiwan in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Although the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) had allowed contested elections for a small number of seats in the Legi ...

movement. In 2006, he wrote a book that examines treaties that have strongly influenced the

Taiwanese history The history of the island of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ancest ...

with a goal to "set the facts straight" as the history of Taiwan is controversial.

References

External links

10th term President – Examination Yuan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yao, Chia-Wen 1938 births Democratic Progressive Party chairpersons National Taiwan University alumni Senior Advisors to President Chen Shui-bian Taiwan independence activists Taiwanese people of Hoklo descent Living people Changhua County Members of the Legislative Yuan 20th-century Taiwanese lawyers Taiwanese Presidents of the Examination Yuan Democratic Progressive Party Members of the Legislative Yuan Members of the 2nd Legislative Yuan Senior Advisors to President Tsai Ing-wen