The name of Taiwanese American Tim Wu (吳修銘), a Columbia University professor set to join US President Joe Biden’s administration, has significance for Taiwan, family friends said, as they recalled time spent with Wu’s father, Alan Wu Ming-ta (吳明達), in the US and Canada during the 1970s.
On March 5, Biden nominated Tim Wu, a second-generation Taiwanese American, to be his special assistant for technology and competition policy.
Alan Wu named his eldest son “Tim,” an acronym for “Taiwan independence movement,” said Strong Chuang (莊秋雄), former chairman of World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI)-USA.
With roots in Tainan, Alan Wu graduated from National Taiwan University medical school, obtained a doctorate at the University of Toronto in Canada, and became a medical researcher.
While in Canada, he married Gillian Wu (nee Edwards), whose family had emigrated from the UK when she was a child.
She is a prominent immunologist and is known for being York University’s first female dean of science and engineering.
Chuang said that he and Alan Wu were classmates at Chang Jung Senior High School in Tainan, but went their separate ways during their university studies.
“Separately, Wu and I went to the US for graduate studies in 1971... One day, George Chang (張燦鍙), who at the time was head of United Formosans in America for Independence, asked me to organize the annual meeting for the Taiwanese independence movement at Ohio State University,” Chuang said. “It was quite a surprise for me to see Alan Wu there. It was then that I learned we had the same political spirit.”
While studying in Canada, Alan Wu became chairman of WUFI-Canada and was placed on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime’s blacklist, which prohibited him from returning to Taiwan, Chuang said.
Alan Wu died of a brain tumor in 1980 at the age of 42, he said.
In 2014, when Tim Wu ran as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of New York, he explained the meaning of his name and recounted his father’s activism in the Taiwanese independence movement, Chuang said.
“It was the reason many overseas Taiwanese activists named their sons ‘Tim’ during that era,” he said. “I also named my son ‘Tim,’ when he was born in 1971.”
Former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) said that he and Alan Wu became good friends in Canada.
Tsai said that they would gather with other Taiwanese activists in the Toronto area to discuss the future of Taiwan.
“We talked about Taiwan’s political situation: pushing for a directly elected president, achieving the lifting of martial law and rescuing political prisoners incarcerated by the KMT,” Tsai said. “Alan Wu mostly sat there and listened, not speaking much.”
“But he was always there when we needed a hand or a cash donation,” added Tsai, president of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance.
In 1979, then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) made his first trip to Washington, and the Taiwanese community rallied in protest, Tsai said, adding that Alan Wu was in a group that took an overnight bus to reach Washington in time.
He also gave a lot of support when overseas Taiwanese groups launched a letter campaign to demand that the KMT release political prisoners, Tsai said.
“At the time, we were all poor Taiwanese students in the US and Canada — none of us had much money — but when the groups asked, Alan Wu never hesitated to donate for the cause,” he said.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan
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