Lin Cheng-chieh | |
---|---|
林正杰 | |
Member of the Legislative Yuan | |
In office 1 February 1990 – 31 January 1996 | |
Constituency | Taipei 2 |
Member of the Taipei City Council | |
In office 25 December 1981 – September 1986 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 8 November 1952 |
Nationality | Taiwanese |
Political party | Democratic Progressive Party (1986–1991) |
Alma mater |
Tunghai University National Chengchi University |
Occupation | politician |
Lin Cheng-chieh ( Chinese: 林正杰; pinyin: Lín Zhèngjié; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lîm Chèng-kia̍t; born 8 November 1952) is a Taiwanese politician. A tangwai activist for Taiwan's democratization, he helped found the Democratic Progressive Party. After leaving the DPP in 1991, he began supporting Pan-Blue Coalition political endeavors.
Lin's father Lin Kwun-rung was a Kuomintang spy. The government sent him to China in 1956, where he was jailed until 1980. Following his release, Lin Kwan-rung spent three years at his ancestral home in Fujian until, with the help of his wife, he returned to Taiwan in 1983. [1] Lin Cheng-chieh studied political science at Tunghai University, and attended graduate school at National Chengchi University.
Lin was known as one of "three musketeers" of the tangwai movement, alongside Chen Shui-bian and Frank Hsieh. [2] [3] He ran as a tangwai candidate and won a seat on the Taipei City Council in 1981. [4] Lin won reelection in 1985. [1] The next year, the defendants involved in the Kaohsiung Incident began serving their prison sentences. Lin was credited with leading a protest calling for democratization, an action that became a catalyst for the establishment of the Democratic Progressive Party, of which Lin is a founding member. [5] [6] Months after the protest, Lin was stripped of his office upon being imprisoned in September on charges of libel. [7] [8] Lin accused Hu Yi-shou of financial impropriety. Alongside libel charges, Hu filed a second lawsuit against Lin, claiming that Lin had violated election law in his 1985 campaign. [9] In February 1987, Lin's sentence was extended by eight months. [10] Within the DPP, he led the Progress faction, a collective opposed to Taiwan independence. [11] Lin left the DPP in June 1991, [12] shortly after Fei Hsi-ping and Ju Gau-jeng, leading the party to radicalize and openly support Taiwan independence. [13] [14] After leaving the DPP, Lin told Alan M. Wachman in July 1991 that "[I]t is not necessarily the case that those who identify themselves as Taiwanese support Taiwan independence... I know a lot of socialists who support reunification. But they speak Taiwanese. They are not willing to speak Mandarin." [15] Lin, who had been elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1989 under the DPP banner, [16] [17] served most of his first term and all of his second term as an independent, stepping down in 1996. In September 1993 Lin founded the New Parliament Magazine, a newsletter-like publication with a Pan-Blue editorial line. [18] In 1994, Lin began a hunger strike as part of a larger protest in support of retaining a statue of Guanyin on the grounds of Daan Forest Park. [19] Despite having left the Democratic Progressive Party, Lin served as deputy mayor of Hsinchu under fellow DPP founder James Tsai. [20] Lin later became the chairman of the Chinese Unity Promotion Party. [21]
In August 2006, Lin slapped and kicked Chin Heng-wei , editor of the magazine Contemporary Monthly, during a joint appearance on Formosa TV. [22] [23] He was widely criticized by Pan-Blue and Pan-Green political leaders. [24] The Million Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Must Go campaign, a movement he had supported, forbid Lin from participating in a sit-in protest against Chen Shui-bian. [25] However, Lin was permitted to attend a protest outside the Presidential Office led by the group in September. [26] The Taipei District Prosecutors' Office charged Lin with inflicting bodily harm on Chin Heng-wei in October 2006, [27] and Lin was eventually sentenced to a 50-day prison term. [28] In August 2007, Lin and others were indicted for their actions during the Presidential Office protest. [29] [30] Despite the indictment, Lin continued small protests against Chen by founding the Nine Nine Association. [31] In December, he led a gathering of thirty people to protest the renaming of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. [32] When Chen stepped down from the presidency in 2008, Lin petitioned Chen's successor, Ma Ying-jeou, to bring corruption charges against Chen. [33]
During the 2016 presidential election, Lin supported Hung Hsiu-chu's campaign. [34] [35]
Lin was married to musician T. C. Yang. [9] [36]