Chen Changwen

Chen Changwen is a Taiwanese legal scholar who was the secretary of the Straits Exchange Foundation and the president of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China. Chen was chairman and chief executive officer of Lee and Li, one of Taiwan's largest law firms, and currently serves as senior partner.

Biography

Chen was born in 1944 in Kunming, Yunnan, the fourth child of Chen Shou-ren, a soldier who graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy. His family to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War in 1949 during the Great Retreat. In October 1949, Chen Shouren was transferred to Sichuan and was appointed chief of staff of the 69th army. Later, he died in Qionglai.
Chen Changwen was raised in Taipei. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from National Taiwan University in 1967, then pursued graduate studies in Canada, where he earned a Master of Laws from the University of British Columbia in 1969. His LL.M. thesis was titled, "The problems of micro-states in international law".
After receiving his master's degree, Chen went to the United States to attend Harvard University, earning a second LL.M. in 1970 and then a Doctor of Juridical Science in 1972, both from Harvard Law School. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "China and the law of consular relations".
In the 1980s, Chen served as the president of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China. In the early 1990s, Chen was appointed the secretary of the Straits Exchange Foundation.