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Chen Chien-jen (born 1939)

Taiwanese diplomat

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ8273004 ↗
Source-derived summary

Chen Chien-jen (Chinese: 程建人; pinyin: Chéng Jiànrén; 11 August 1939 – 26 September 2025) was a Taiwanese diplomat and lawyer who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1999 to 2000.

Background

Chen was born in Jiangsu, China, on 11 August 1939. After moving to Taiwan in his childhood during the Great Retreat, Chen graduated from National Chengchi University in 1960 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and earned a master's degree in international relations from the university in 1962. He then studied law in England, where he earned a second LL.B. in 1965 from the University of Cambridge in international law. In 1966, he was a fellow at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain.

Chen died on 26 September 2025, at the age of 86.

Political career

Chen served in the Legislative Yuan for one term from 1993 to 1996. He was then named the minister of the Government Information Office in 1998. The next year, he was appointed to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chen planned to retire after stepping down at the end of President Lee Teng-hui's final term in 2000.

Editorial summary

“Chen Chien-jen (born 1939)” enters the record as taiwanese diplomat. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chen, Chien-jen and born can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 2025, 1999, 2000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1939-08-11. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Chen, Chien-jen and born.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Chen Chien-jen (born 1939)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chen, Chien-jen and born provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8273004. VIAF identifies the subject as 61261406. The Library of Congress control number is no2004082542. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2025, 1999 and 2000.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Chen Chien-jen (born 1939)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Chen Chien-jen (born 1939) primary sources, Chen Chien-jen (born 1939) archive and Chen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Chen Chien-jen (born 1939)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.