Lien Chan
Politician and former Premier of Taiwan
Lien Chan (Chinese: 連戰; pinyin: Lián Zhàn; born 27 August 1936) is a Taiwanese political scientist and politician. A member of the Kuomintang (KMT), he nominally governed Taiwan as the head of the Taiwan Provincial Government from 1990 to 1993 and served as Premier of the Republic of China from 1993 to 1997, Vice President of the Republic of China from 1996 to 2000, and Chairman of the Kuomintang from 2000 to 2005.
Lien was born in China to a prominent Taiwanese family of intellectuals. After graduating from National Taiwan University, he earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago in 1965 and began an academic career in the United States as a professor at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Connecticut. Upon returning to Taiwan in 1968, he became a professor at National Taiwan University, entered politics, and held multiple ministerial and executive offices.
During the 1990s, Lien was a close aide of President Lee Teng-hui and introduced several of Lee's constitutional reforms. He ran for the presidency on behalf of the Kuomintang twice, but lost both times in 2000 and 2004 to Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. As party chairman, he was highly credited for holding a groundbreaking visit to mainland China to meet Chinese leader Hu Jintao in 2005, the first meeting between party leaders of the KMT and the CCP since the end of the Chinese Civil War. The event was considered significant for encouraging cross-strait relations.
Early life and education
Lien Chan was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi, on August 27, 1936.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lien Chan” as politician and former Premier of Taiwan. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as politician and former Premier of Taiwan. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q558718. VIAF identifies the subject as 66364444. The Library of Congress control number is nr96007919. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1990, 1993 and 1997.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lien Chan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lien Chan primary sources, Lien Chan archive and Lien research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- 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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- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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This entry incorporates text from “Lien Chan” 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.