Source: Straits Shinkansen
The Chinese Kuomintang is scheduled to re-elect the party chairman in July, and five candidates who may run for the presidency are already being evaluated online to see who is louder. The results show that former Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu is in the first place, followed by Ma Ying-jeou, current party chairman Jiang Qichen and former chairman Zhu Lilun, and in fifth place is Lian Shengwen, vice chairman of the Kuomintang think tank. We have discussed more about the possible candidates for the previous KMT chairmen, and today we are going to talk about Lien Shengwen.
Lian Shengwen's "original sin": "three generations of politics" and "relying on the father"?
Lian Shengwen, from a Taiwanese political family, great-grandfather Lian Heng is a Taiwanese historian who wrote the General History of Taiwan. His grandfather, Lian Zhendong, was the head of Taiwan's internal affairs department, and his father, Lien Chan, was the former chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang and the former deputy leader of the Taiwan region.
Born in Tainan in 1970 and later moved to Taipei, Lien Graduated from Fu Jen University in Taiwan to study in the United States after graduating from the Faculty of Law, where he received a master's degree in laws and a doctorate in laws from Columbia University. After graduation, Lien Joined the financial industry and served as an executive director of GM Asia Pacific Venture Capital and vice president of Morgan Stanley Investment Bank.
In 2004, Lien Chan, then chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang, was elected to the leadership of the Taiwan region, with Lien Sheng-moon as his father's assistant, and his political ability gradually showed. In April 2005, before Lien Chan stepped down as chairman of the Kuomintang, he led a delegation to the mainland to carry out an "ice-breaking journey", witnessed by Lian Shengwen, the eldest son.
In the same year, Lien Sheng-man began to engage in politics, and in the first competition, he was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang Central Committee with a high vote, becoming a political rookie in Taiwan's political arena. After that, Lien Shengwen was re-elected and re-elected for many consecutive terms of the Central Standing Committee, until September 2013, when the Kuomintang Central Standing Committee was re-elected, and Lian Shengwen voluntarily gave up the qualification for the election of the Central Standing Committee.
At the mention of Lian Shengwen, Taiwanese current affairs commentator Dong Zhisen blurted out the two words "Shengwen", which sounded familiar and kind. As a veteran reporter who has been running lien chan news for a long time, Dong Gelian is also very familiar with Lian Shengwen. Speaking of shengwen in his eyes, Dong Ge used several words, "simple", "jianghu", "rest assured"... Behind each word, there is a lot of appreciation and pity for the younger generation. Unlike Brother Dong, the outside world has more negative impressions of Lian Shengwen as "the third generation of politics" and "relying on his father", in this regard, Taiwan's current affairs commentator Li Jiannan talked about Lian Shengwen's experience in college, lamenting that "Lian Shengwen is actually quite unlucky, and often society has a lot of unreasonable criticism of them", and it is no wonder that Lien Chan once vigorously opposed Lian Shengwen taking the political road.
Lien Shengwen's ups and downs: being shot and being bullied
After Lien Shengwen entered politics in 2005, the popularity index soared like a roller coaster, and like Ma Ying-jeou at that time, he was the most likely super assistant for KMT candidates in various election venues, big and small. But it is also because of the election that Lian Shengwen encountered a major crisis in his life.
At 8:00 p.m. on November 26, 2010, when Lian Shengwen was building momentum for the Kuomintang's New Taipei City Councillor candidate Chen Hongyuan, he was strangled by the neck and shot at close range, the bullet penetrated the skull of the face, and after the emergency medical treatment, Lian Shengwen was out of danger of life, but an innocent citizen at the scene was tragically affected and unfortunately shot and killed.
The shooting incident of Lian Shengwen shocked the whole of Taiwan, which had a subtle impact on the election of Taiwan's "five capitals" at that time, and also made many Taiwanese people re-understand the Lian family and Lian Shengwen.
After recovering from the trauma of the 2010 shooting, Lian Shengwen's popularity has continued to rise. In 2014, Lien represented the Kuomintang in that year's Taipei mayoral election.
However, in the election campaign, Lian Shengwen's family background was used by the Green Camp to make a big fuss, and he was also firmly labeled as a so-called "magnate", which was compared with Ko Wenzhe, a doctor at National Taiwan University who represented the Green Camp, and the competition between the two became a war of confrontation between "the common people and the magnates". In the end, Lien Shengwen lost with a gap of more than 240,000 votes.
At that time, his father's career in Lien Chan encountered "two bullets", while Lian Shengwen himself was shot firmly, and his fate was really bumpy, and the results of the later investigation of the case were also quite tortuous. The Taipei police basically closed the case with a mistaken injury, and Even Shengwen's request to transfer the case to the Taiwan Special Investigation Team for investigation was unsuccessful. Tsai Ing-wen, who was the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party at the time, said at the first time that this was gang behavior when the police had not yet launched an investigation. What is the name behind this case? Was it really a mistake? The Taipei mayoral election in 2014 was probably the biggest blow to Lien's political career. Some people say that not being elected mayor of Taipei may be a good thing for Lian Shengwen, so that Lian Shengwen gradually has the calculations and patterns that politicians should have, but the price is too heavy. In that election campaign, Mr. Dong said, "Mr. Lien became the most bullied politician in Taiwan's history." It seems that bullying Lian Shengwen was the happiest thing for everyone at that time. Everyone is making up stories. "Many scenes really made him sigh.
Later in Lien Shengwen: Success doesn't have to be in me?
After losing the election for mayor of Taipei, Lien Shengwen set off again, saying that he wanted to volunteer for the KMT and help the KMT get back on its feet.
On May 20, 2017, the Kuomintang Party Congress of China held the election of party chairman and party representatives, and as many as 31 of the 32 youth party representatives sent by Lian Shengwen were elected. In Taiwan's 2018 "nine-in-one" election, Lian Shengwen ran through taiwan, and all 11 candidates for young and strong parliamentarians were elected, and the outside world jokingly called "Lian Jiajun" took shape. Lien Said, "Success doesn't necessarily come from me. We can come on our own or support others. ”
After Taiwan's "nine-in-one" election in 2018, there were more and more voices within the Kuomintang calling for generational change. On December 28, 2018, Lian Shengwen posted on Facebook, calling on senior regional people's representatives over the age of 65 to be transferred to non-divisional people's generations, so that the young and strong generations can face the challenges of regional people's elections, triggering intra-party polemics.
At the beginning of 2020, in the by-election of the kmt chairman, Lian Shengwen came forward in particular to fully support Jiang Qichen, the representative of the KMT's Youth Zhuang faction. After Jiang Qichen took office, it was originally rumored that Lian Shengwen and others were popular candidates for the vice chairman of the Kuomintang, but Jiang Qichen cancelled the appointment of the vice chairman of the party, and repeatedly talked with Lian Shengwen, and finally invited him to join the Kuomintang think tank and serve as vice chairman.
Since the second half of last year, since the second half of last year, Lian Shengwen has frequently spoken out on issues such as Taipei MunicipalIty, covid-19 vaccines and imported U.S. pigs, and has a positive attitude. Some insiders in the KMT said that Lian Shengwen has recently won the support of many KMT mesozoic generations, and has also taken advantage of various opportunities to meet with a number of key figures and party representatives in the counties and cities in the central and southern part of the Blue Camp, or is "carefully evaluating the candidates for the election of party chairman." Lian Shengwen often said that what is lacking in the Kuomintang is people who can change the status quo. So, in the matter of running for the chairman of the party, will Lien Shengwen take on the heavy responsibility of changing the status quo himself, or will he still hold the attitude of "success does not have to be in me" and support the candidates with the same concept?