(File Photo)

Lien Chan (連戰, in pinyin: Lián Zhàn) (born August 27, 1936, in Xi'an) has been the chairman of Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) since 2000.

Early life and education

Lien Chan was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, as the only child of Lien Chen-tung (連震東) and Chao Lan-k'un (趙蘭坤). His paternal grandfather, Lien Heng (連橫), was the writer of The General History of Taiwan (台灣通史), a book that is often cited for the quote, "Taiwan's sorrow is that it has no history." Although he was born in Mainland China, because of his family roots in Taiwan, he is not usually considered a member of the Mainlander group in Taiwan.

Lien earned a Bachelor's degree in political science from the National Taiwan University in 1957 and a Master of Arts in International Law and Diplomacy in 1961. He received a Ph.D. in political science in 1965 from the University of Chicago and married Fang Yui the same year.

Lien held assistant professorships of political science at the University of Wisconsin from 1966 to 1967 and the University of Connecticut from 1967 to 1968. He returned to Taiwan in 1968 to become visiting professor of political science at the National Taiwan University, serving as chairman of the Political Science Department and dean of the Graduate Institute of Political Science the following year.

Name

His surname is Lien; his given name is Chan."Chan" means "battles" and his full name literally means "successive battles." The name originated from Lien Heng who, sick with liver cancer in Shanghai, wrote to his pregnant daughter-in-law in Xi'an: "China and Japan will battle inevitably. If the child born is a boy, name him Lien Chan, signifying that the strength coming from within oneself will never diminish and can overcome the enemies and be victorious. It also has the meaning of reviving the former nation, reorganizing the light and hope of our homeland." (『中、日必將一戰，如生男則名連戰，寓有自強不息，克敵制勝，有復興故國、重整家園光明希望。』)