Chen Li-an
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- This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.
Chen Li-an (陳履安, pinyin: Chén Lǚ'ān; born June 22, 1937), sometimes spelled Chen Lu-an, was a Taiwanese politician.
Son of former Vice President Chen Tsyr-shiou, Chen was born in Lushan, Jiangxi and earned his masters' and Ph.D. in mathematics from New York University. He had a close friendship with Wang Yung-ching, a respected businessman. Wang later appointed Chen the headmaster of the private Ming-chi Technology College, which Wang owned (July 1970 - February 1972).
He was the economic minister from 1988 to 1990, defense minister from 1990 to 1993, and the President of the Control Yuan from 1993 to 1995. He resigned his post, left the Kuomintang and declared his running for presidency in September 1995 to express his open criticisms of Lee Teng-hui's Mainland policy.
Lin Yang-kang originally considered Chen to be his vice-presidential running-mate in the ROC presidential election, 1996. However, Chen chose to run as president himself (with Wang Ching-feng as the vice-presidential candidate). As Chen is a devoted convert to Tibetan Buddhism (he is ethnically Han), he toured the island in a strong spiritual theme in his campaign, giving an image that some commented to be like an "ascetic monk".
After losing his bid in the presidential election with the lowest vote among the 4 candidates, Chen announced that he would retire from the politics. Later, as part of his efforts to promote Tibetan Buddhism, he founded the Hwa-yu Foundation (化育基金會), of which he serves as president and his eldest son, Chen Yu-ting (陳宇廷), serves as director. Chen also organized charities to financially assist ethnic minorities in mainland China, Tibet and Nepal.
From 1996 to 1998, he visited the People's Republic of China three times, including a visit with President Jiang Zemin.
While he still considered the Kuomintang a "rotten party" [1], Chen endorsed the KMT candidate Lien Chan in the ROC presidential election, 2000, believing that Lien was unlike the rest of the Kuomintang.
On January 6, 2001, Chen re-joined Kuomintang, also bringing his wife, Tsao Chin (曹倩), to join for the first time. He commented that while it had done some embarrassing things, the Kuomintang also did some good to the country.
Since 2002 Chen and his family have been investing and running various business in mainland China, Nepal and Macao, but soon it was widely rumored that these business ran poorly and lost large amount of money, mostly from his previous Buddhist and political supporters. In January 2006 Taipei District Prosecutors' Office fined Chen NT$ 0.5 million for illegally soliciting money, but did not prosecute him because of his "remorseful attitude". Meantime, Chen and his eldest son Yu-ting were also separately rumored to have affairs with female employees in the Hwa-yu Foundation.
Chen's last public appearance was in the Pan-Blue Coalition's protests shortly after the ROC presidential election, 2004. He showed his support towards Lien Chan and James Soong.
