| Josephine Chu | |
| Native Name Lang: | zh-tw |
| Honorific-Suffix: | MLY |
| Constituency: | Taipei 2 |
| Order: | Member of the Legislative Yuan |
| Term Start: | 1 February 1996 |
| Term End: | 31 January 2002 |
| Birth Date: | 1950 12, df=yes |
| Party: | Independent |
| Otherparty: | New Party |
| Nationality: | Taiwanese |
| Alma Mater: | Princeton University (Ph.D.) |
| Occupation: | Politician |
| Profession: | Museum director |
Josephine Chu (; born 16 December 1950) is a Taiwanese former politician. She served in the Legislative Yuan from 1996 to 2002. Chu and Hsu Hsin-liang formed an independent ticket in the 2000 presidential election, finishing fourth.
Chu, born in 1950, is of Mainlander descent.[1] She received a Ph.D. in art and archaeology from Princeton University in 1990 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "The Chung Yu (A.D. 151-230) tradition: a pivotal development in Sung calligraphy."[2] She was then a research fellow at the National Palace Museum.[3]
Chu served two terms in the Legislative Yuan, winning the 1995 and 1998 elections.[3] Throughout her legislative career, she was occasionally covered in local media as a New Party politician,[4] but most often as an independent.[5] [6] Chu and Hsu Hsin-liang formed an independent ticket in the 2000 presidential election, won by Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu. Chu ran for the Hsinchu district seat in the legislative elections of 2001 with the endorsement of the Gender Sexuality Rights Association, but lost.[7]
Chu has worked to expand LGBT rights in Taiwan,[8] [9] and has advocated for rights of foreign spouses.[10]
Chu backed efforts to maintain an unbiased media, as well as cultural outreach initiatives. To this end, she supported a proposal by the Taiwan Media Watch Foundation to have government workers barred from working in the media,[11] and has criticized political interference in the Public Television Service.[12] In 2001, she expressed support for expanding the National Palace Museum to southern Taiwan,[13] a project that was not completed until 2015.
When the United States government announced that it would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, Chu sought a meeting with the American Institute in Taiwan to argue for the ratification of the treaty.[14] In 2004, she criticized the Chen Shui-bian administration for backing a NT$610.8 billion proposal to acquire American weapons, saying that the results of the cross-strait referendum showed that most Taiwanese did not approve of the action.[15]
After leaving politics, Chu taught at Taipei National University of the Arts.[16] In 2009, she returned to the National Palace Museum as assistant director of educational outreach,[17] assuming the departmental head position the next year.[18] [19]