Fredrick Chien

Fredrick F. Chien, or Fred Chien, Chien Foo (; born 21 March 1935), is a retired Taiwanese diplomat and politician who served as the President of the Republic of China Control Yuan from 1999 to 2005. After graduating from Yale University, he assumed a series of governmental positions include Director-General of the Government Information Office from 1972 to 1975, Republic of China Representative to the United States from 1982 to 1988, Chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development from 1988 to 1990, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 1996. He was also the Speaker of the National Assembly between 1996 and 1999. Early life Chien and his parents originate from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Chien's paternal grandfather, Chien Hong-Yeh, was a Chief Judge of the Criminal Court in Shanghai. Chien's father, Chien Shih-Liang, was a chemist and educator, and the former President of the National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica. Chien's mother was Chang Wan-tu. He was born in Peking's Shou Shan Hospital, a hospital of the Peking Union Medical College, on March 21, 1935 (February 17 on the lunar calendar). In the fall of 1937, at the age of two, as the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, his family moved to Shanghai to live with his paternal grandfather. His grandfather was assassinated during the Wang Jingwei regime in July 1940 after refusing to go along with a Japanese attempt to control the court system. After the war ended, his family moved back to Peking, where his father became the chair of Peking University's Chemistry Department at the invitation of President Fu Ssu-nien. With the Chinese Civil War, his family moved to Shanghai in mid-January 1949 and then to Taiwan with the Nationalist Government in mid-February.