Edith Chao (
Chang, who is 100, was visibly moved to deep sorrow after seeing his wife taken off life-support at the Straub Hospital before she died Thursday, newspapers reported from Honolulu.
Chao had accompanied Chang throughout his 50 years of house arrest. The couple's love affair was seen as one of the greatest in the history of modern China.
At 18, Chao, the beautiful daughter of a vice transport minister, fled her home to live with the then-married Chang in Shenyang in northeastern China after the two met and fell in love at a ballroom dance.
Chang, who has been popularly referred to as "the young marshal," was at the time a military chieftain in northeastern China.
A long ordeal began for the couple in 1936 when Chang's troops kidnapped Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (
The incident is seen as having given the communists the boost that later enabled them to overthrow Chiang's KMT and seize power in 1949.
Chang released Chiang unharmed after the two-week coup.
But the KMT later captured the young marshal and fled to Taiwan, where they held Chang under house arrest for decades.
In Taipei, Chang and Chao converted to Christianity and lived in seclusion in a hillside villa, reading the Bible and growing orchids.
Their affection even moved Chang's wife, Yu Feng-chih (
Chang only gained full freedom in 1990. The couple left for Honolulu a year later.
Newspaper reports said Chao will be buried at a cemetery in Honolulu, where a site is also reserved for Chang.
The couple had rejected pleas by relatives to live in China and be buried at Chang's hometown in Shenyang after they die.
Besides her husband, Chao is also survived by her son, Chang Lu-lin, 70, who lives in Honolulu.
President Chen Shui-bian (
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS