Josephine Chu

Chu Hui-liang MLY
朱惠良
Chu as a member of the Third Legislative Yuan
Member of the Legislative Yuan
In office 1 February 1996 – 31 January 2002
Constituency	Taipei 2
Personal details
Born	(1950-12-16) 16 December 1950 (age 74) Nantou City, Taiwan
Education	National Taiwan University (BA, MA) Princeton University (MA, PhD)
Profession	Museum director

Chu Hui-liang (Chinese: 朱惠良; pinyin: Zhū Huìliáng; born 16 December 1950), also known by her English name Josephine Chu, is a Taiwanese art historian and 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 was born in Nantou City in 1950 to a waishengren family.^[1] She graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in history in 1974 and earned a master's degree from the university in art history in 1977. She won a government scholarship to complete graduate studies in the United States, where she studied Chinese and Japanese art at Princeton University under historians Wen Fong and Frederick W. Mote.^[2]

As a graduate student at Princeton University, Chu received a Mellon Fellowship to study at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.^[2] She earned a Master of Arts (M.A.) in art and archaeology and her Ph.D. in art and archaeology in 1990 from Princeton. Her doctoral dissertation was titled, "The Chung Yu (A.D. 151–230) Tradition: A Pivotal Development in Sung Calligraphy".^[3]

After receiving her doctorate from Princeton, Chu became a research fellow at the National Palace Museum.^[4] She also held associate professorships at National Taiwan University and the National Institute of the Arts.^[5][6]

Chu served two terms in the Legislative Yuan, winning the 1995 and 1998 elections.^[4] Throughout her legislative career, she was occasionally covered in local media as a New Party politician,^[7] but most often as an independent.^[8][9] 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.^[10]

Chu has worked to expand LGBT rights in Taiwan,^[11][12] and has advocated for rights of foreign spouses.^[13]

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,^[14] and has criticized political interference in the Public Television Service.^[15] In 2001, she expressed support for expanding the National Palace Museum to southern Taiwan,^[16] 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.^[17] 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.^[18]

After leaving politics, Chu taught at Taipei National University of the Arts.^[19] In 2009, she returned to the National Palace Museum as assistant director of educational outreach,^[20] assuming the departmental head position the next year.^[21][22]