More than 100 people gathered yesterday evening at National Taiwan University (NTU) in memory of former Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) assistant professor Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成), whose death 30 years ago remains a mystery to this day.
Chen, a graduate of NTU’s Department of Mathematics, went to study in the US and later became an assistant professor at CMU’s Department of Statistics.
He was called by the Taiwan Garrison Command — a military state security agency during the Martial Law era — for interrogation on July 2, 1981, when he returned to Taiwan to visit his family, because of his support for the pro-democracy movement.
Photo: George Tsormg,Taipei Times
On the morning of July 3, 1981, Chen’s body was discovered next to a library on the NTU campus and it was unclear whether his body was deliberately placed there to appear as though he had committed suicide or fallen off the building by accident.
The Garrison Command said they released Chen after the interrogation and that they had nothing to do with his death.
Thirty years later, what really happened that night remains a mystery.
“I am really thankful that so many of you students came out tonight to remember my brother and what happened 30 years ago,” Chen’s elder sister, Chen Pao-yueh (陳寶月), told the gathering of NTU students, friends and family members at the site where Chen’s body was found.
A documentary on Chen was also shown at the service.
“Some people may think what happened to my brother has nothing to do with them. Well, if no one pays attention to such things, one day, what happened to my brother may happen to you too, and by that time, you would regret that you didn’t care enough earlier,” she said.
She criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party for “not admitting to the bad things they have done,” and said that, at the age of 60, the only thing she cares about now is discovering the truth about Chen Wen-cheng’s death.
“[Chen Wen-cheng’s death] is something big that has happened on our campus. He was an NTU graduate as well, but the school never paid much attention to it and most of students don’t know about it, and we think this is not right,” said Lin Hsin-yeh (林欣曄), president of the NTU Graduate Student Association. “This is why we’ve organized this event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Chen Wen-cheng’s death.”
She said the association, as well the undergraduate student organization NTU Student Association, would not only like more of their classmates to know about Chen Wen-cheng’s story, but also called on the school to erect an official memorial for him on the site where his body was discovered, and to record Chen Wen-cheng’s story into the school’s history.
The students made their own miniature memorial and placed it on the site where Chen Wen-cheng’s body was discovered, hoping that there would be an official one next year.
In addition to the on-campus memorial event, the Chen Wen-cheng Memorial Foundation will organize a concert in his memory tomorrow at 7:30pm at the Civil Service Development Institute in Taipei.
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made