| Wang Hongwei | |
| Office1: | 10th-11th sessionLegislative Yuan |
| Term Start1: | January 16, 2023 |
| Predecessor1: | Chiang Wan-an |
| Constituency1: | Taipei City Constituency III |
| Office2: | Taipei City CouncilMembers of the 10th to 14th term |
| Term Start2: | December 25, 2006 |
| Term End2: | January 16, 2023 |
| Constituency2: | Third electoral district (Songshan District, Taipei、Xinyi District, Taipei) |
| Birth Date: | 10 July 1964 |
| Birth Place: | Keelung |
| Alma Mater: | National Chengchi University |
| Children: | 3 daughters |
| Spouse: | Tao Yunzheng |
Wang Hongwei (born July 10, 1964, Chinese: 王鴻薇) is a politician of the Taiwan, a member of the Chinese Kuomintang, currently a legislator of the Taipei City Constituency III, and the deputy secretary-general of the Legislative Yuan of the Chinese Kuomintang.[1]
Formerly a journalist, he represented the New Party (Taiwan) from 2006 to early 2013 and the Kuomintang from 2013 to early 2023. He was re-elected as a member of the Taipei City Council for five terms. Since 2017, he has also served as the deputy chairman of the Kuomintang Cultural Communication Committee. Elected in the legislative by-election in January 2023; re-elected in January 2024.
Wang Hongwei was born in Keelung City. The family originated from Tanggu, Tianjin (today's Binhai New District of Tianjin City). My father was a sailor and arrived in Taiwan first when The retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan; my mother and grandmother came to Taiwan to reunite with each other through Hong Kong.[2] Wang Hongwei studied at Taipei Civil Rights Elementary School, Renai Junior High School, and Taipei First Girls' High School. I obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism from National Chengchi University in 1987.
After graduation, Wang Hongwei worked as a journalist, mainly writing financial and economic news. She has been employed by "Taiwan Times" (Financial Section), "Commercial Times" (Financial Section), and "United Daily News" (Economic Section). While working at Lianhe Daily, she also served as deputy director of the Interview Center and director of the Greater Taipei Center.
Wang Hongwei joined the New Party when Fai Hrong-tai a former member of the Songshan New Party (Taiwan), was elected as a legislator. She was elected a Taipei City Councilor in the 2005–06 Taiwanese local elections.[3] She was re-elected as a member of the New Party and the Chinese Kuomintang for five terms and over 16 years.
In 2013, Wang Hongwei quit the New Party and joined the Kuomintang. In 2014, he ran for city council on behalf of the Kuomintang. Yang Shih-kuang, a media person nominated by the New Party, ultimately lost the election. In the 2018 city council re-election, he was re-elected with the highest number of votes.[4]
In 2017, Wang Hongwei served as deputy chairman of the Kuomintang Cultural Communication Committee and joined the spokesperson group.
During the 2022 Taiwanese local elections, Wang Hongwei exposed the suspected plagiarism of former Hsinchu City Mayor Lin Zhijian and List of county magistrates of Yilan Jiang Congyuan's master's thesis.[5] In the end, Lin Zhijian's master's thesis from National Taiwan University and Chung Hua University were both found to be plagiarized, and their degrees were revoked. At the same time, Jiang Chongyuan's master's thesis from Tamkang University was also found to be plagiarized, and his degree was revoked.
During her tenure as a member of the House of Representatives, Wang Hongwei tried to run for office as a legislator several times. He originally intended to run for a seat in Taipei City Constituency III on behalf of the New Party in the 2012 Taiwanese legislative election but was not nominated. This constituency was won by the Kuomintang Alliance non-district legislator Luo Shulei, who was elected with the highest number of votes in Taipei City. Wang Hongwei moved to the new party and came second in the non-regional election but was defeated because the party vote did not reach 5%. After joining the Kuomintang, she participated in the pre-selection of the Kuomintang legislators in the same constituency in 2015. Still, at the bottom, she was defeated by three competitors (the other two were Chiang Wan-an and Luo Shulei). Although he once said he would persist until the end, he did not participate in the primary election. Jiang Wanan came out and was elected in this district. In 2019, he participated in the primary election for the legislature of Taipei City Constituency VII but lost to Fai Hrong-tai, a legislator who had been reelected for many terms. In the end, Fei Hongtai was reelected with a slight gap.[6]
On December 2, 2022, Wang Hongwei was recruited by the Kuomintang to participate in the by-election for the legislative vacancy in Taipei City's Third Electoral District to fill the vacancy left by Chiang Wanan's resignation due to his candidacy for Taipei City Mayor.[7] Although he had just been re-elected as a city councilor in the 2022 local election and had stated during the election that he would not participate in the by-election,[8] he changed his decision after being persuaded by senior leaders in the party[11]. This is the first time Wang Hongwei has represented the Kuomintang to stand for election as a legislator since she failed to run for the non-district legislator on behalf of the New Party in 2012. According to the "Local System Law," the vacancy left by Wang Hongwei will not be held in a by-election, so he was criticized by Wu Zheng, the loser. Before the polls were closed, he was once significantly ahead of Democratic Progressive Party candidate Enoch Wu. However, before the election, he shouted, "The election situation is urgent," to urge votes. In the end, he was elected with the smallest vote gap in the history of this constituency and was elected in January 2023. He was sworn in on January 16; he was successfully re-elected on January 13, 2024, with 105,050 votes and a vote rate of 52.52%.[9]
Wang Hongwei is recruiting research assistants with a basic salary. She has to do tasks such as finding topics and running website blogs. She works 8.5 hours daily, and her salary is only 17,280 yuan. Taipei City Councilor Lin Jinzhang said that the public expenses for assistants are 240,000 yuan monthly, and 6 to 8 assistants can be hired. Wang Hongwei responded that she respects the freedom of speech of netizens and is looking for part-time students. If she hires a full-time assistant, her salary will be 25,000 yuan.
In July 2010, Wang Hongwei mosaics an illustration from the non-restricted novel "Haruka Nogizaka's Secret" on her blog. This move caused animation fans to leave comments on the blog and the New Party's discussion forum to criticize. Most comments were immediately deleted, and reading permission restrictions were added to the discussion forum on August 9 [18]. On August 18, the New Party discussion forum administrator deleted all questions and comments about this incident. In September 2010, the Animation Upward Promotion Association criticized the behavior of Congressman Wang Hongwei and the administrators of his political party forum at a press conference. It proposed an amendment to the classification system.[10]
In May 2020, Wang Hongwei criticized the Presidency of Tsai Ing-wen towards the United States on the China Central Television International Channel program "Cross the Strait": "What are the interests of Taiwan? Trump does not care much about the United States. Fortunately, he met an unprecedented leader who was very obedient to Americans, and that was Tsai Ing-wen. "Using the word "leader" instead of "president" made her feel inferior to her national character. Criticism.[11]
On May 27, 2022, Wang Hongwei posted a picture of flooding in Shalu District, Taichung City, on Facebook to criticize DPP legislator Lin Ching-yi for ignoring the disaster in her constituency. At that time, Lin Jingyi organized a delegation with cross-party legislators to go to the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. The picture was found to be a photo of flooding in 2013, and she later corrected the photo, saying it was mistakenly planted.[12]
On October 18, 2022, Wang Hongwei held a press conference and said that Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chi-mai used the quota of publicly funded medical students at National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology when he was studying. After completing his studies, he failed to fulfill his obligation to serve in rural areas, occupying the quota and resources of publicly funded medical students. Wang Hongwei also asked Chen whether he had paid the tuition fee. Chen Qimai's (b. 1991) camp responded that it had returned public funds by regulations, and everything complied with regulations.[13] The Medical Affairs Department of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of China stated that the time and space background allowed the practice of "paying back the money and settling the matter." If publicly funded students had other employment options after graduation, they could choose to repay their tuition fees to avoid serving in the countryside. After the system had been revised, the 2016 new system could not exempt service obligations by repaying the money, so there was no longer the practice of "losing money and settling the matter." Not only do public-funded students have to return their tuition fees, but if they fail to serve in the countryside according to the regulations, their medical certificates will be withheld. I am unable to practice outside the home.[14]
Wang Hongwei has been dating her classmate Tao Yunzheng since she was in college. After graduation, they entered the journalism world, got married around 1990, and have three daughters. After Wang Hongwei entered politics, her husband resigned to support her political career entirely.[15]