Background
Shou-Po Chao was born on March 1, 1941 in Changhua, T'ai-wan, Taiwan.
趙守博
educator politician civic activist
Shou-Po Chao was born on March 1, 1941 in Changhua, T'ai-wan, Taiwan.
In 1947 Shou-Po Chao started his education. He graduated from the Tsaokang Elementary School of Lukang Township in 1953. In the same year, through a very competitive entrance examination, he was admitted to and enrolled at the junior department of the very prestigious Taichung First High School in Taichung. In 1956 he finished his junior high school education and again through a highly competitive entrance examination he entered the senior department of the same Taichung First High School.
Upon his completion of senior high school education in 1959, Shou-Po Chao took part in the extremely competitive Combined Entrance Examination for Universities and Colleges in Taiwan and was granted admission to the Zoology Department of the highly prestigious National Taiwan University. At the same time, he also passed the entrance examination of the Central Police College (now Central Police University).
After serving as an inspector at the Taiwan Provincial Police Administration and completing one-year ROTC military service in the army, Shou-Po Chao passed the highly competitive examination for the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Scholarship for Studying Abroad in 1965. He enrolled at the College of Law of the University of Illinois.
In 1968, he got the Master of Comparative Law (M.C.L.) degree from the University of Illinois with Professor Wayne R. LaFave as his thesis advisor. Immediately after his completion of the master's degree, he was admitted to the doctoral program in the University of Illinois College of Law. He completed his doctoral study and was conferred upon the Doctor of the Science of Law (S. J. D. or J. S. D.) degree in 1972 from the University of Illinois with Professor Peter Hay as his dissertation advisor.
Shou-Po Chao has a long career in governmental services in Taiwan from the 1970s to the 2000s. He became the Commissioner of the Department of Information of the Taiwan Provincial Government in 1976 at the age of 35, concurrently the Spokesman of the Taiwan Provincial Government, the youngest Provincial Government Department Commissioner in history up to then. Before that he had been the Director-General from 1974 to 1976 of the School Youth Service Department of the Headquarters of the quasi-governmental China Youth Corps.
In January through March 1979 Shou-Po Chao was designated by the national government as a member of a special mission headed by Political Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Hsi-kun to go to Washington D. C. to negotiate with representatives of the U.S. State Department. The negotiation resulted in the enactment by the U.S. Congress of the Taiwan Relations Act which has been one of the most important guidelines for U.S. policy toward Taiwan and has become the major foundation for the current Taiwan-U.S. relations.
In October 1979, Shou-Po Chao was appointed as Commissioner of the Council of the Taiwan Provincial Government. He was Commissioner of the Department of Social Affairs of the Taiwan Provincial Government from 1981 to 1987; during this period, Shou-Po Chao initiated many innovative programs and projects to upgrade and expand the social welfare services, employment security, occupational health and safety, labor insurance, community development in the Province of Taiwan, making great contributions to the improvement of the well-being of the people, especially the employed and the low-income people.
In February 1989, Shou-Po Chao was appointed as the Labor Minister of the National Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan), a post he held until December 1994, making him the longest-serving labor minister until now in Taiwan. When he was Labor Minister, Shou-Po Chao modernized labor legislation. He maintained a good and reasonable balance between the employers and the employed and helped the labor unions to function more effectively and properly.
In December 1994, Shou-Po Chao became the Secretary-General of the Cabinet headed by Premier Lien Chan, a post he held until June 1997 when he was appointed as a Minister without Portfolio after a cabinet reshuffle. He was in charge of the review of the legislative proposals and governmental programs as submitted by the various ministries to the cabinet in the areas of social welfare, labor affairs, justice, youth affairs, police and internal affairs when he was Minister without Portfolio. He was made the Governor of the Province of Taiwan from December 1998 to May 2000 with the duty to restructure the Taiwan Provincial Government. He retired from the governmental service in May 2000 after his party, the Kuomintang, was defeated in the 2000 Presidential Election.
In 2008, Chao was appointed by President Ma Ying-jeou of the ROC as the Presidential National Policy Advisor, a post he held until January 2011 when President Ma appointed him as the Senior Advisor to the President of the Republic of China, a post he has held since then.
Shou-Po Chao was the Chairman of the Board of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC), the largest broadcasting institution in Taiwan, from 2002 to 2005 and has been the host of a special Sunday commentary program called "Talk Everything for Taiwan" at the BCC since 2005.
Shou-Po Chao was the Commissioner of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan from 2006 to 2012; during his term as the Commissioner, he successfully persuaded the government to give more incentives for the promotion of professional sports and for the enactment of stricter law to prevent illegal gambling regarding professional sports.
Chao was President of National Life Saving Association, R. O. C. from 1995 to 2001; President of the National Council on Social Welfare, R.O.C. of the International Council on Social Welfare(ICSW) from 1995 to 2004; He was Chairman of World Lung Kang Association( a worldwide Association of the Liu, Chang, Kuan and Chao Families) from 2003 to 2006; He was Chairman of Taiwan Chamber of Industry and Commerce from 2011 to 2015 and has been Honorary Chairman of the Cross-Strait Business Development Council since 2009.
Shou-Po Chao has involved actively in the party affairs in the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), the ruling party from 1949 to 2000 and from 2008 until now, in the Republic of China on Taiwan.
He was a Central Committee member from 1980 to 2001, a Central Standing Committee (equivalent of Political Bureau) member from 1996 to 2000 of the Kuomintang. He served as the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Information and Propaganda (1979 to 1981), Director-General of the Department of Social Affairs (1987 to 1989) and Director-General of the Department of Organization (2000 to 2001) of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang during the party chairmanship respectively of Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui and Lien Chan. Chao has been a Presidium Member of the Central Advisory Committee of the Kuomintang since 2001.
Shou-Po Chao has been very actively involved in the Scout movement and world Scouting activities. He was a national council member in the Scouts of China in Taiwan from the 1970s until the 2010s. Chao was the Chairman and the Chief Commissioner of the General Association of Scouts of China (Taiwan) from 2007 to 2013. He has been the Chairman of the Board of the Scouts of China Foundation (Taiwan) since 2007.
He is a 2003 recipient of the Bronze Wolf Award of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, the highest honor in the World Scout Movement.