Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan received his B.A. in Sociology and M.A. in National Development from National Taiwan University. He has demonstrated his passion for politics since he was a university student. In 1990, when Cheng was serving as the vice president of NTU’s Student Association, he and his peers launched the Wild Lily Student Movement, a movement that eventually led to major reforms to the National Assembly and enabled democracy to flourish in Taiwan.
As Taiwan became democratized, Cheng served as a staff for political leaders and began participated in several elections, accumulating his political experiences. In 1988, Cheng was elected as a councilmember in Taoyuan County with a record-breaking number of votes. In 2006, Cheng was appointed as Minister of the Government Information Office in the Executive Yuan. During his term, Cheng focused his efforts on revitalizing Taiwan’s cultural and creative industry with the objective of shaping Taiwan as a major pop-culture hub in the Mandarin-speaking world.
Cheng was elected as mayor of Taoyuan at the age of 47. At the time, he was the youngest municipal mayor in Taiwan. He has shown his outstanding ability in city governance and earned a rating of “five-star mayor” for four consecutive years in nationwide media. Taoyuan, home to the nation’s largest international airport, is the gateway to Taiwan. During his term, Cheng proposed the concept of “airport economics,” highlighting Taiwan’s advantageous sectors, such as aviation, logistics and warehousing, e-vehicle and component manufacturing, the green industry, as well as IoT and ICT. In addition, many overseas Taiwanese business looking to relocate to Taiwan have chosen Taoyuan as their first choice of investment. Since Cheng took office, Taoyuan’s population growth has become the highest in the country. Taoyuan also boasts the youngest population in Taiwan, with an average citizen age of 39 years old. This population increase is largely credited to Cheng’s youth-oriented policies, emphasis on startups, and support for families.