Early life and education Chiang was born in
Yilan during the
Qing Dynasty rule. At the age of 10 he began to study with a
Confucian scholar (張鏡光). In 1915 he graduated from the Taiwan Medical College (now the
National Taiwan University College of Medicine). Around 1919 he married
Chen Tian. He established the Taian Hospital (大安醫院) in Daitōtei, a district in today's Taipei and he also called on other intellectuals to come to the hospital and hold joint lectures. He founded the in
Daitōtei, a district in modern-day
Taipei, and invited fellow intellectuals to the hospital to discuss contemporary affairs. Before he established the hospital, he worked shortly as a surgical assistant at Yilan Hospital.
Political activism In 1920 he began participating in the movement to found the Taiwan Assembly. In 1921 he helped found the
Taiwan Cultural Association. While the Taiwanese Cultural Association was active in promoting lectures, publications, and other cultural activities, Chiang was one of its central figures. This was during Japanese colonial rule. He was imprisoned for four months in 1923 and again in 1925 for his opposition to the Japanese
colonial government. During this time, Chen Tian would lecture in his stead, continuing the promotion of his ideas. In total, Chiang was imprisoned twelve times. In 1927, the Taiwan Cultural Association split because of an internal ideological division between rightists and leftists. Chiang went on to help found the
Taiwanese People's Party on a platform of unity. The Taiwan People's Party was the first legal party to be founded in Taiwan. Chiang was also involved with the and the . He came under criticism from rightists in the government. When , and others prepared for the formation of the , Chiang expelled them. The Taiwan People's Party contacted the
League of Nations several times to protest Japanese issuance of special permits for
opium sale as well as the
Musha Incident. All of these were happening during the Japanese colonial period. People’s political movements, their cultural and linguistic promotion, and the struggle of identity were all combined with anti-colonial resistance. The Taiwanese People's Party's political philosophy was the
Three Principles of the People, but and others pushed for a revolutionary line.
Death and funeral In 1931, the colonial administration forced the dissolution of the party. Chiang died of
typhoid that same year, at the age of 40 (41 by
traditional Chinese reckoning). Since typhoid was considered to be a highly infectious disease, his remains were cremated the day he passed away. On 23 August 1931, three weeks after his death, over 5,000 mourners marched from
Dadaocheng to , where he was buried. Smaller marches in commemoration of Chiang took place across Taiwan, including one in Taichung organized by
Lin Hsien-tang and . Lo Chia-hui characterizes the funeral as a political ceremony of metropolitan scale in colonial Taiwan; various organizations seriously debated the semantic problem of a “public funeral,” and Japanese police largely monitored and even regulated the event. Writing in the 1970s in the context of the nativist and
tangwai movements,
Huang Huang-hsiung described Chiang as Taiwan's
Sun Yat-sen. His grave was located in Taipei Public Cemetery No. 6, on Chongde St., near
Liuzhangli Station, until October 2015, when his remains were moved to Cherry Blossom Cemetery in Yilan. ==Legacy==