Henry Liu (7 December 1932, Jingjiang, Jiangsu, China – 15 October 1984, Daly City, California, United States), often known by his pen name Chiang Nan, was a writer and journalist from Taiwan. He was a vocal critic of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), then the single ruling party of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and was most famous for writing an unauthorized biography of Chiang Ching-kuo, former president of the Republic of China.^[1] He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

[edit] Assassination

On 15 October, 1984, Liu was shot to death in the garage of his home in Daly City, California.^[1] His killers fled the country, returning to Taiwan. They did not face trial until the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered a tape made by chief hitman Chen Chi-li implicating Republic of China military intelligence in the killing, whereupon they began to pressure the government to bring Liu's killers to trial.^[2] According to Chen's testimony at his trial in Taipei, Wang Hsi-ling of Kuomintang intelligence ordered the assassination.^[3] A month after his conviction, Chen retracted this statement. However, Tung Kuei-sen, another one of the killers, corroborated this fact at his own trial in the United States in 1988, stating that the order for Liu's death had been given by the Taiwanese government. Tung (who had previously been cleared of racketeering charges related to the assassination) was convicted.^[1][4][5] The assassination became a major political scandal in Taiwan and American officials were critical of the Kuomintang for orchestrating an assassination on United States soil.

Helen Liu, Henry Liu's wife, filed suit in United States federal district court against the Republic of China. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (Liu v. Republic of China) that the ROC government was liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior;^[6][7] a petition for certiorari from the ROC government to the U.S. Supreme Court was subsequently rejected.^[8] The suit was later settled out of court.^[9]

The assassination was the subject of the book Fires of the Dragon by David E. Kaplan.

[edit] References

This biographical article related to Taiwan is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

This article about a United States writer of non-fiction is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e