John Hsiao-yen Chiang, vice chairman of Taiwan’s ruling party (the Kuomintang), visited the Hoover Institution on February 6, 2012. He was accompanied by Jack Chiang, director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in San Francisco, Li-fang Huang, a director at TECO, Colin Kao, a senior official from the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry, and Wayne Chiang, son of John Hsiao-yen Chiang. A grandson of Chiang Kai-shek and a son of Chiang Ching-kuo (both top leaders of the Republic of China), John Hsiao-yen Chiang is an influential politician in Taiwan. Before becoming vice chairman of the Kuomintang Party, he was Taiwan’s foreign minister from 1996 to 1997, vice premier in 1997, secretary-general of the presidential office from 1999 to 2000. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Legislative Yuan.
Hsiao-ting Lin and Lisa H. Nguyen, curators of the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, gave the visitors a tour of the exhibit A Century of Change: China 1911–2011. Lin showcased the Chinese revolution posters published in Shanghai in 1912, the 1911 revolution photos from the James B. Webster papers, Sun Yat-sen’s letters to Homer Lea, Chiang Kai-shek’s personal diaries, and correspondence among Nationalist Chinese politicians, including T.V. Soong, H.H. Kung, and Zhang Xueliang.
