Chen Ming-tong

In this Chinese name, the family name is Chen.

Chen Ming-tong (Chinese: 陳明通; pinyin: Chén Míngtōng; born 25 November 1955) is a Taiwanese political scientist and politician who served as the director-general of the National Security Bureau from 2021 to 2023 and the minister of the Mainland Affairs Council from 2018 to 2021 and 2007 to 2008.

Chen Ming-tong
陳明通
Chen in 2014
19th Director-General of the National Security Bureau
In office 23 February 2021 – 31 January 2023
President	Tsai Ing-wen
Preceded by	Chiu Kuo-cheng
Succeeded by	Tsai Ming-yen
8th and 13th Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council
In office 19 March 2018 – 22 February 2021
Prime Minister	William Lai Su Tseng-chang
Deputy	Chiu Chui-cheng Lee Li-chen
Preceded by	Lin Cheng-yi (acting)
Succeeded by	Chiu Tai-san
In office 10 April 2007 – 20 May 2008
Prime Minister	Su Tseng-chang Chang Chun-hsiung
Preceded by	Joseph Wu
Succeeded by	Lai Shin-yuan
Deputy Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council
In office 20 May 2000 – 19 May 2004
Minister	Tsai Ing-wen
Personal details
Born	(1955-11-25) 25 November 1955 (age 69) Taichung County, Taiwan
Political party	Democratic Progressive Party
Education	National Taiwan University (BA, MA, PhD)

Education

After graduating from Taichung Municipal Taichung Second Senior High School, Chen studied political science at National Taiwan University, earning his bachelor's degree in political science in 1979, his master's degree in political science in 1981, and then his Ph.D. in the subject in 1991. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "The Movement of Local Political Elites in Taiwan under Authoritarian Regime (1945-1986)" (Chinese: 威權政體下臺灣地方政治菁英的流動（1945－1986）—省參議員流動的分析).^[1]

Academic career

Chen worked as a researcher in the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission of the Taipei City Government in 1983-1984. After finishing his doctoral degree, he worked as associate professor followed by professor at the Graduate Institute of National Development of NTU from 1992 to 2000.

He was a thesis adviser to several politicians affiliated with the Democratic Progressive Party, including Chiu Chih-wei, Kao Chia-yu, Lin Chih-chien, Pan Men-an, Cheng Wen-tsan and Shen Fa-hui.^[2]

In 2022, several master theses he advised were pointed out for plagiarism, and his students Lin Chih-chien and Cheng Wen-tsan's master degrees had been canceled by National Taiwan University.^[3][4] Then he was fired by the university.^[5][6] In 2024, he published a book with Puma Shen's preface, claiming that the "theses event" was political persecution influenced by mainland China.^[7] However, the university declared that Lin and cheng had accepted the cancellation of their degrees and Chen was required to apologize to the public as the advisor of the graduates.^[8]

Political career

He led the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) between 2007 and 2008, then returned to NTU. In 2018, he succeeded Katharine Chang as MAC minister.^[9][10]

National Security Bureau

In 2022, he publicly claimed on the basis of intelligence that China was not going to invade Taiwan within the next several years while Tsai Ing-wen remained in office and that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had caused the mainland to re-evaluate their military plans regarding Taiwan. He also claimed that Taiwan had some knowledge of what the makeup of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was going to be after the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to be held later in 2022.^[11]

His public revelation of this information was criticized by former army Major General Yu Beichen, he alleged that revealing such specific information put intelligence gathering in the mainland at risk.^[12][13]