Chen Li-an

Chen Li-an, sometimes spelled Chen Lu-an, is a Taiwanese mathematician, economist, and former politician. He was the president of the Control Yuan from 1993 to 1995.

Early life and education

Chen was born in China in Lushan City, Jiangxi, on 22 June 1937. His ancestral home is in Qingtian County, Zhejiang. His father, Chen Cheng, was a prominent politician who was a general in the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek. After studying at the Affiliated [Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University], Chen was educated in the United States.
Chen graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1960, then completed graduate studies at New York University, where he earned his Master of Science in mathematics and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1968 under Hungarian-American mathematician Peter Lax. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Solving Improperly Posed Problems by Mathematical Programming Technique".

Career

While he still considered the Kuomintang a "rotten party", Chen endorsed the KMT candidate Lien Chan in the 2000 ROC presidential election, believing that Lien was unlike the rest of the Kuomintang.
In January 2001, Chen re-joined the Kuomintang, because he thought both the party and Taiwan needed him.