Cheng Li-wen

A Hunger Strike at the NTU Gate in 1988

In the winter of 1988, a 19-year-old female university student was on a hunger strike at the gate of National Taiwan University.

Her name was Cheng Li-wen. Her father, from Yunlin, was a veteran who had migrated from Yunnan to Taiwan, and her mother was a local from Yunlin.¹ Born in Jingzhong Village No. 3 in Tainan, she grew up in a mixed family of second-generation mainlanders and locals. In her freshman year, she joined the newly legalized Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), calling herself a "fundamentalist" supporter of Taiwan independence.²

Her hunger strike was for a man named Huang Hua. Huang Hua was prosecuted by the government for "treason" due to his advocacy of Taiwan independence. Cheng Li-wen set up a station at the NTU gate, refusing food to demand the authorities release Huang Hua. At the time, she believed she was doing something pure: resisting authoritarianism and fighting for independence.

She later recalled in an interview: She waited for days, but the people who came to persuade her to withdraw were not KMT agents, but members of the DPP. People from the DPP told her: "Huang Hua is a troublesome figure. Don't get involved with him. Your hunger strike is making our party look awkward."³

This was the first time she realized that the "Taiwan independence" in her mind and the "Taiwan independence" the DPP was actually practicing might not be the same thing at all. Thirty-seven years later, on April 10, 2026, she walked into the Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and told Xi Jinping: "Compatriots across the strait are all Chinese."

What happened between that female university student on a hunger strike and the KMT chairperson speaking in Beijing?

30-Second Overview: Cheng Li-wen, born in 1969 into a Veterans Administration family in Tainan, joined the DPP in 1988 and went on a hunger strike at the NTU gate for the Huang Hua Taiwan independence case, was elected as a National Convention delegate in 1996, left the DPP in 2002 due to the Wu Rui-ren incident, and was invited by Lien Chan to join the KMT in 2005. Serving as a legislator and spokesperson for the Executive Yuan three times starting in 2008, she hosted the political talk show Li-wen's Straight Talk on TVBS from 2014 to 2015. Elected KMT Chairperson in October 2025, she became the second female directly elected chairperson in party history; her campaign slogan was "I am Chinese." Upon taking office, she faced controversy over the White Terror Autumn Memorial mourning incident involving spies. On April 10, 2026, she represented the KMT in meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing, becoming the first leader of a major political party in the Republic of China to meet with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in ten years.

How a Scholar Learned International Politics

Cheng Li-wen is not just a student activist with a hunger strike story.

In 1993, she obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Law from the Beasley Law School of Temple University in the United States.⁴ Then, in 2000, she earned a Master of Science (MSc) in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, while still a PhD candidate in International Relations.⁵ These two degrees played a subtle role throughout her subsequent career—when she later discussed terms like "KMT-CCP platform," "peace framework," and "institutional arrangements for preventing war," she was someone who knew what these terms meant in international political textbooks.

From 1996 to 2000, Cheng Li-wen served as a National Convention delegate representing Taipei City under the DPP banner. Simultaneously, she served as Deputy Director of the Youth Development Department at the DPP Central and Deputy Convener of the National Convention Party Group. This was the typical trajectory of the first generation of student movement activists entering the system after the lifting of martial law.

In 2002, a sexual harassment case involving Wu Rui-ren occurred within the DPP. Dissatisfied with the party central's handling of the matter, Cheng Li-wen had her party rights suspended and then resigned from her DPP positions.⁶ This was the official point in time she left the green camp, but her later explanation was more direct: "I realized that Taiwan independence had long been a joke, a scam."⁷

In 2005, she accepted Lien Chan's invitation to officially join the Kuomintang (KMT). In 2005, a female in her thirties, with a Master of Laws degree, trained in Cambridge International Relations, and who had once gone on a hunger strike for Taiwan independence—such a resume was an exception in the KMT. Lien Chan wanted that very exception.

The Warrior, Controversies, and a TV Show

After joining the KMT, Cheng Li-wen first served as a spokesperson, then as a spokesperson for the Executive Yuan, and entered the Legislative Yuan as a non-constituency legislator in 2008.

Within the party, she earned the title "Warrior" (Zhan Jiang). The reason was that her statements were sharp, she was skilled at appearing on political talk shows, and she did not shy away from the camera. During the Ma Ying-jeou era, the blue camp entered an atmosphere of "being pressed and beaten," and Cheng Li-wen was one of the few who could confront them head-on. The Central News Agency described her election as chairperson: "Breaking through with the image of a warrior."⁸

But the "Warrior" label also came with a cost. In 2005, while serving as Chairman of the KMT's Information and Communications Committee, she named and criticized DPP Taichung Mayor candidate Lin Chia-lung as a "corrupt mob" in an election advertisement. Lin sued her under the Election and Recall Act. The first instance sentenced her to three months in prison with a one-year deprivation of public rights, later reduced to one month of detention suspended.⁹ Another controversy involved her violating KMT party regulations by hosting a radio show for more than the four-hour weekly limit. These two controversies were not fatal, but they left a common label on her political career: "Very capable, but often crosses the line."

From 2014 to 2015, she hosted the TVBS political talk show Li-wen's Straight Talk.¹⁰ This show solidified her "political talk style": direct, sharp, hitting the nail on the head, often forcing opponents into a corner with a single sentence. This style was directly related to her path to becoming KMT Chairperson—she did not rely on organization or local factions, but on "being able to speak."

On October 18, 2025, the results of the 12th KMT Chairperson election were announced. Cheng Li-wen defeated former Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin and current legislator Luo Chih-chiang with approximately 50% of the vote, becoming the second female directly elected chairperson in KMT history, the first being Hung Hsiu-chu.¹¹

The key slogan of the election was only six characters: "I am Chinese."

From "Hunger Strike for Taiwan Independence" to "I am Chinese"

This is the most difficult part of Cheng Li-wen's persona to understand.

Her version is this: In her youth, she believed Taiwan independence was a just path, but after entering the system, she found that the DPP's definition of "Taiwan independence" was fundamentally self-contradictory—claiming to want independence while never truly pushing for it in the system. She called this gap "Taiwan independence is a scam,"¹² and even more intensely, "Taiwan independence fascism."¹³ She believed her political stance had not changed; what changed was her judgment of "who is telling the truth."

The opposing version is this: Cheng Li-wen transformed from an idealistic student activist into a combatant friendly to Beijing, systematically "reformed" by the old KMT system led by Lien Chan. Each of her "anti-Taiwan independence" declarations was a step to climb to the next position. Her sitting in the Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2026 to talk with Xi Jinping is the final result of this reformist path.

Both versions have evidence and blind spots.

The blind spot of the first version is: If the judgment that "Taiwan independence is a scam" comes from real experience, why did this judgment happen to lead to "joining the other party that just happens to welcome this judgment"? A pure epistemological shift would not coincide so perfectly with a career path.

The blind spot of the second version is: After entering the KMT, Cheng Li-wen was indeed long part of the more radical faction within the blue camp, even seen by old blues as "disobedient." Her path was not a copy of the standard KMT line, but an independent sub-line. Saying she is "any substitute the KMT sends" is inaccurate—she indeed has her own political judgment.

The truth likely lies between the two: A person with academic training, who knows how to debate and wants influence, found no place for herself in the green camp in Taiwan's political field in the 2000s, so she moved to the blue camp—the blue camp just happened to need someone "who could speak, had academic credentials, and had a student movement background" to change its image at that time. The two sides clicked. This was not betrayal, nor a pure shift in belief, but a political worker choosing a path that was most beneficial to herself while remaining self-consistent.

But the cost of this choice was: She had to move toward Beijing all the way, or this choice would lose its internal logic. From "Taiwan independence is a scam" to "I am Chinese" to "Compatriots across the strait are all Chinese"—she could not stop in the middle.

The White Terror Autumn Memorial and Wu Shi's Photo

If there is one event that concretizes the dynamics above, it is the White Terror Autumn Memorial memorial service in November 2025.

Less than three weeks after becoming KMT Chairperson, Cheng Li-wen attended the "1950s White Terror Autumn Memorial Mourning and Soul-Comforting Assembly" hosted by the "Mutual Aid Association for Political Victims in Taiwan." On the list of memorial subjects, there was a name: Wu Shi.¹⁴

Who is Wu Shi? He was the former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Republic of China Ministry of National Defense, executed at the Machangting Execution Ground in Taipei in 1950. His charge was: Communist Spy. He was indeed a high-level intelligence agent for the CCP潜伏 (hidden) in Taiwan, codenamed "Secret Agent No. 1," providing intelligence to the CCP around the time the National Army moved to Taiwan in 1949. Historically, he is recognized as a CCP spy—the CCP itself later publicly acknowledged him and listed him as a "Revolutionary Martyr."

The autumn memorial event Cheng Li-wen attended placed Wu Shi on the same memorial list as other "White Terror victims," and a Chinese red song, Song of Rest, was played on site. The Council on Continental Affairs (CCA) issued a statement with very heavy wording: This is "whitewashing criminals who betrayed the country and sold out their comrades into a tragedy of mutual slaughter between KMT and CCP," and is "the most serious injury to national dignity."¹⁵

Cheng Li-wen's response was divided into two parts. The first part was denial: She said she did not know beforehand that Wu Shi was on the memorial list; she went for "White Terror memorial," not "communist spy mourning."¹⁶ The second part was an extension: She mentioned that she too had gone on a hunger strike for Huang Hua in her youth, believing that tragedies between the two sides of the strait should be viewed within the same historical narrative—this is a language of "grand historical reconciliation."¹⁷

But the second part is exactly the core of the controversy. When a "national security narrative" places a traitorous intelligence agent and ordinary citizens wrongfully imprisoned by the government in the same memorial ritual, history is rewritten. From the suppression of its own people by an authoritarian state, it becomes a "tragedy of civil war among Chinese people." This rewriting is no small matter—it slides the "ROC victims" from the position of "Taiwanese" to the position of "Chinese."

The core of the CCA's criticism was not "you shouldn't memorialize the White Terror," but "you reshaped the White Terror from a local victim narrative into a Chinese civil war narrative." This is a shift in identity.

This event and the phrase "compatriots across the strait are all Chinese" in the Cheng-Xi meeting five months later are the same narrative appearing in two different settings.

April 10, 2026: The End of the Trajectory, or the Midpoint

On the afternoon of April 10, 2026, Cheng Li-wen walked into the Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and met with Xi Jinping for approximately ten minutes.¹⁸ She proposed five points, the most notable of which was "promoting the institutionalization of peaceful cross-strait development, gradually achieving a 'peace framework'." Xi Jinping's response was "compatriots across the strait are all Chinese, one family."¹⁹

This meeting was called by herself a "Peace Journey." According to NPR's analysis, her strategy was to use Taiwan society's uncertainty regarding the Trump administration to build a "hedging, centrist" cross-strait positioning for the KMT.²⁰ Atlantic Council researcher Song Wendi pointed out that Cheng Li-wen's discussion of "institutional arrangements for preventing war" actually implies "slowing down national defense military building and reducing US weapons procurement" in policy terms.

After the talks, the CCA summarized her performance with one sentence: "We repeatedly asked Chairperson Cheng to present the three major demands of the Taiwan people to Xi Jinping—recognize the existence of the ROC, respect the will of the Taiwan people, and stop military aircraft and warship harassment—but she didn't say a single one of them." Deputy Chairman Liang Wen-jie's tone was weary.²¹

This moment has an absurd symmetry.

In 1988 at the NTU gate, Cheng Li-wen went on a hunger strike to force the government to release a Taiwan independence activist prosecuted for treason. At that time, she believed the "government" was an authoritarian regime. In 2026 in Beijing's Fujian Hall, she sat opposite Xi Jinping, speaking for no Taiwanese imprisoned by Beijing—neither for Taiwanese political prisoners in China, nor for Taiwanese writers arrested and returned to China for trial, nor for those Taiwanese scholars harassed abroad. She no longer protested; she was conversing.

But this time, the person across the table was a different kind of authoritarian, with greater power and less concern for procedural justice.

Ending: Both Cheng Li-wens Are Real

Some say the Cheng Li-wen who hunger-stripped in 1988 is dead. The person who nodded to Xi Jinping in Beijing later is a completely different person wearing the same name.

Others say these two Cheng Li-wens are actually the same person—she has always been doing what she believed would most shake the "existing structure." In 1988, challenging the KMT's authoritarianism; in 2026, challenging the DPP's Taiwan independence narrative. The tools changed, but the posture did not.

Both statements make sense. But perhaps there is a third: The Cheng Li-wen of 1988 and the Cheng Li-wen of 2026 are both real, and they are both products of the same Taiwan society at different stages. An island just emerging from martial law produced a youth who hunger-stripped for Taiwan independence; an island searching for a foothold under the shadow of China's rise produced a middle-aged political figure talking about a "peace framework" in Beijing. It is not that Cheng Li-wen changed, but that the shape of the "Taiwan question" changed.

But this statement also has its cruel side: If Cheng Li-wen is a product of the "changing shape of the Taiwan question," then the success of her path means the shape of the Taiwan question has already been changed to the direction she originally hunger-stripped against.

So the real question is not "Has Cheng Li-wen changed?" but: Has Taiwan changed?

Further Reading:

• 2026 Cheng-Xi Meeting: Ten Minutes of the KMT-CCP Leaders' Reunion After Ten Years — The current endpoint of Cheng Li-wen's personal trajectory, the full scene and aftermath of that meeting
• Taiwan Strait Crisis and Development of Cross-Strait Relations — The historical structure Cheng Li-wen was in ten years before and ten years after, the invisible forces that led this figure to Beijing
• Taiwan Political Environment and Electoral System — Why could "I am Chinese" become the KMT Chairperson's campaign slogan? The party member structure in the electoral system provides the answer
• Taiwan Democratic Transition — The year Cheng Li-wen hunger-stripped was the first year after lifting martial law; understanding her starting point requires understanding the youth culture of those five years of democratization
• Ko Wen-je — Another cross-boundary political figure moving from green to blue (or white to blue); their paths share similarities and differences
• Hsieh Ying-chun — Another prototype of female political figures on the same 2026 stage, with a completely different path and corresponding view of Taiwan
• Han Kuo-yu — The "Chairperson + Legislative Yuan President" dual structure of the KMT in 2025-2026; Cheng Li-wen in the party, Han Kuo-yu in the legislature
• Chao Jung-tai — The main promoter of the 1.25 trillion military purchase in the Executive Yuan, Cheng Li-wen's opposing position of "Party version 380 billion + N"
• Lu Hsiu-yan — Cheng Li-wen's opponent in the 2025 KMT Chairperson election, whose "not running" opened the channel for Cheng Li-wen's entry
• Hsu Chiao-hsin — In the 2026 military purchase controversy, the main promoter of the "800 billion" version colliding with Cheng Li-wen's "Party version 380 billion + N"
• Chi Lin-lian — The vice chairperson appointed by Cheng Li-wen in 2026, the party member who named Han Kuo-yu at the 4/29 Central Executive Committee meeting, igniting the blue camp split event

References