# Johnny Chiang

Chiang Chi-chen (Chinese: 江啟臣; pinyin: Jiāng Qǐchén; Wade–Giles: Chiang$^1$ Chʻi$^3$-chʻên; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Kang Khé-sîn; born 2 March 1972), also known by his English name Johnny Chiang, is a Taiwanese politician and former international political economy scholar who is currently the vice president of the Legislative Yuan.
Chiang served as an associate professor in Soochow University before his political career. He was the penultimate Director-General of the Government Information Office from 2010 to 2011, a post he resigned to become a member of the Legislative Yuan in which he has served since 2012. In March 2020, he was elected the Chairman of the Kuomintang and assumed office on 9 March until he was succeeded by Eric Chu on 5 October 2021. Chiang took office as vice president of the Legislative Yuan on 1 February 2024.

## Early life and education

Chiang was born on 2 March 1972. He attended elementary and junior high school in his hometown of Taichung before studying diplomacy at National Chengchi University. He served in the 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion during his compulsory military service. He was honorably discharged from the Army's special force with the rank of corporal.
Chiang completed graduate graduate studies in the United States, where he earned a master's degree in international studies from the University of Pittsburgh, then earned his Ph.D. in the subject from the University of South Carolina. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Globalization and The Role of the State in Contemporary Political Economy: Taiwan and India in the 1980s and 1990s".

## Academic career

Chiang taught at the Department of Political Science of Soochow University as a full-time associate professor, and worked in multiple positions at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.

## Political career

He was named the head of the Government Information Office in 2010. When Chiang was selected as a Kuomintang candidate for the legislature in April 2011, he resigned the GIO position and was replaced by Philip Yang [zh]. Chiang was one of five former GIO officials to appear on the ballot. He won election in 2012, and again in 2016. Chiang was chosen as one of five conveners of the Legislative Yuan's constitutional amendment committee in 2015. He shared foreign and national defense committee convener duties with Liu Shih-fang in 2016. Chiang announced his intention to contest the Taichung mayoralty in October 2017, becoming the second Kuomintang politician after Lu Shiow-yen to declare interest in the position. It was reported in February 2018 that Chiang had narrowly finished second to Lu in three different public opinion polls that served as the Kuomintang's Taichung mayoral primary. Chiang declared his candidacy for the 2020 Kuomintang chairmanship election on 25 January 2020, ten days after Wu Den-yih resigned the position. Chiang defeated Hau Lung-pin in the leadership election, held on 7 March 2020. Chiang took office as Kuomintang chairman on 9 March 2020.
In March 2021, KMT chairman Johnny Chiang rejected the "one country, two systems" as a feasible model for Taiwan, citing Beijing's response to protests in Hong Kong as well as the value that Taiwanese place in political freedoms. In September of that year, Chiang lost his bid to retain the chairmanship, finishing third behind Eric Chu and Chang Ya-chung.
Chang won his fourth consecutive legislative term in 2024, and was subsequently elected Vice President of the 11th Legislative Yuan.

## Personal life

Chiang is of Hakka descent from Teochew people. He is married to the daughter of former legislator Liu Shen-liang, with whom he has two children. One of his uncles is Antonio Chiang [zh], a former National Security Council secretary-general.