Liu Yi-te

Liu is of Mainland Chinese descent, and became active in the tangwai movement as a student. In a 2001 interview, Liu credited a classmate at Chiayi Senior High School with sparking his interest in politics by reporting Liu to administration for harboring anti-government views, after Liu had tried to start a discussion about a local politician. As Taiwan was then a one-party state led by the Kuomintang, Liu was slapped upon refusing to retract his comments about the politician in a written statement. Liu later met Lee Wen-chung and Lai Chin-lin at National Taiwan University, where he led a club advocating for Taiwan independence.[1][2]

Liu ran in the December 1991 National Assembly elections and took office in 1992 as a representative of Taipei.[3] He won reelection in 1996, and was named Democratic Progressive Party caucus leader.[4] From this position, Liu worked with senior Kuomintang members of the National Assembly and passed a resolution to extend the term of the National Assembly while also reducing its membership by mandating that the next assembly election take place under a system of proportional representation.[5][6] The passage of the resolution drew criticism from both the Kuomintang and Democratic Progressive Party headquarters.[7][8] The Judicial Yuan ruled against the term extension in 2000,[9] but Liu subsequently supported an initiative to postpone the election date of 6 May mandated by the Judicial Yuan.[10] Liu later chastised members of the Judicial Yuan and worked with Kuomintang assembly delegates to remove the justices' lifetime stipend,[11] though he refused to endorse abolition of the Judicial Yuan itself.[12][13] Another vote on the fate of the National Assembly was taken in April 2000, in which Liu and Chen Chin-te of the DPP, as well as their KMT counterparts, agreed to end the National Assembly on 20 May 2000, passing many of its powers to the Legislative Yuan.[14] After stepping down from the National Assembly, Liu was named director of the DPP's organizational development department.[15][16]

He formed an electoral coalition in January 2001 with Chen Chin-te, Chen Tsiao-long, Chiu Kuo-chang, Kang Tai-shan, and Lan Shih-tsung, but did not win election to the Legislative Yuan that December.[17][18] By June of that year, Liu had been approached by a pro-Taiwan alliance that later became the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which Liu joined instead.[19][20] He was named president of the Independence Evening Post in July 2001, shortly before the publication released its last issue in October.[21][22]

Liu represented the Taiwan Solidarity Union in the 2004 legislative elections, but did not win.[23][24] Afterwards, Liu became director of the TSU's organization department.[25][26] In August 2005, Liu pushed the Democratic Progressive Party to rescind a mayoral nomination given to Wang Tuoh in Keelung, stating that if the DPP did not do so, Liu himself would enter the Chiayi mayoral contest to challenge the DPP.[27] Liu did register as a Chiayi mayoral candidate,[28] but withdrew when Wang did the same in Keelung.[29] Liu again challenged the Democratic Progressive Party in 2007, contesting the legislative seat won by Yu Tian.[30]

By 2007, Liu had become a deputy secretary-general of the TSU.[30] From this position, Liu helped the party deliver petitions to the Control Yuan and the judicial branch.[31][32] He also announced electoral strategy in 2011 and 2014.[33][34] Liu defeated Chen Chien-ming in an April 2016 leadership election, and succeeded Lin Chih-chia, who was serving as acting chairman of the Taiwan Solidarity Union at the time.[35]