Chen Po-wei
陳柏惟
Member of the Legislative Yuan
In office 1 February 2020 – 28 October 2021
Preceded by	Yen Kuan-heng
Succeeded by	Lin Ching-yi
Constituency	Taichung II
Personal details
Born	(1985-07-10) 10 July 1985 (age 38)[1] Yancheng District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Taiwan Statebuilding Party (2018–2022)

Chen Po-wei (Chinese: 陳柏惟; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Pek-ûi; born 10 July 1985)^[1] is a Taiwanese politician. He was the first ever Taiwan Statebuilding Party candidate to be elected to the Legislative Yuan, defeating Kuomintang incumbent Yen Kuan-heng in the 2020 Taiwanese legislative election. In October 2021, Chen became the first member of the Legislative Yuan to lose his office via a successful recall election.

Early career

Chen worked in the film industry before pursuing political office.^[2]

Political career

Chen began his political career by running for a seat on the Kaohsiung City Council. After losing that election, he moved from Kaohsiung.^[3] Chen served as the spokesperson for the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (then known as Taiwan Radical Wings) and supported a recall movement against Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu. Throughout his political career, he has been a vocal supporter of Taiwan independence.^[4]

In the 2020 legislative elections, Chen defeated Kuomintang incumbent Yen Kuan-heng in the Taichung City Constituency II becoming the first Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislator. His candidacy was supported by the Democratic Progressive Party and filmmaker Wu Nien-jen.^[5]

In late 2020, Chen stood with Democratic Progressive Party to support the import of American pork with ractopamine.^[6]

A proposal to recall Chen from office collected 3,744 valid signatures by 5 March 2021,^[7] and 36,073 valid signatures by 2 July 2021,^[8] prompting the Central Election Commission to tentatively schedule a recall election for 28 August, the same date as the originally scheduled 2021 Taiwanese referendum. Due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan, the CEC announced on 16 July 2021 that Chen's recall election [zh] would be postponed to 23 October 2021.^[9] A week before the recall vote, groups supporting Chen participated in a march starting at Zushi Temple in Qingshui.^[10] Chen became the first Taiwanese member of the Legislative Yuan to be successfully recalled, ending his term less than two years into office.^[11] Votes for Chen's recall numbered 77,899, against 73,433 opposing his recall. Votes supporting the recall topped 25% of the eligible electorate (73,744), with 51.72 percent voter turnout.^[12] Per Article 92 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, Chen will be ineligible to run for the Legislative Yuan in Taichung's second district for the next four years.^[3][13]

Chen was officially dismissed from the Legislative Yuan on 28 October 2021.^[14] Lin Ching-yi ran to succeed Chen, and he was secretary-general of her legislative campaign.^[15] In July 2022, Chen left the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, and joined the Taichung mayoral campaign of Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Chi-chang.^[16]

Legacy

Application of National Languages Development Act

On 27 September 2021, as the National Languages Development Act [zh] in 2018 stipulates the public services for national languages including the interpreters in the legislature.,^[17][18] and Chen having followed the regulation of Legislative Yan to applied in advance the real-time interpretation service and 3 Taiwanese interpreters had been present ready at site,^[19] Legislator, Chen proceeded his scheduled questioning session in Taiwanese during the Foreign and National Defense Committee [zh].^[20][21] The Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng did not accept the interpreter's assistance at site, but insisted to bring the deputy minister Lee Tsung-hsiao as his own interpreter.^[19] Chiu repeatedly interrupted the question process by asking Chen to speak Mandarin Chinese for easier communication, or the session time cannot be lengthened to accommodate the interpretation,^[20][21] but Lee's translation contained contextual errors,^[20][21][19] so Chen I-hsin intervened during the heated argument and tried to introduce the existing real-time synchronized interpretation on progress at site as the solution same as the common conference practice in the other countries, but Chiu still insisted his way^[20][21] Chen later apologized to the public for the good intention of practicing the national language law being turned into a linguistic communication tragedy, and condemned Chiu for "bullying" (鴨霸), but Chiu denied the allegation and claimed that a language is a tool of communication.^[19] The parliamentary interpretation service were temporarily suspended afterwards pending on better communication in the future - consequently the other parliament members and media editorials such as Kuan Bi-ling and Taipei Times commented that Language is not just a tool of communication (as Chiu said), but also an identity of feelings and culture.^[22] Councilor Miao Poya also explained that the multi-lingual working environment is essential for a healthy mind without the "Chinese Language Supremacy" (華語至上) attitude to achieve the international level in diversity, equality and mutual respect for a modern state.^[19]