Cheng Tzu-tsai

Cheng Tzu-tsai (, born on 1 December 1936; also known as TT Deh) is a Taiwanese architect and political dissident who conspired with others in the of Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, in New York City.

Early life Cheng was born on 1 December 1936 in Tainan when Taiwan was part of the Empire of Japan. He was the third of seven children, and his father was a wholesale fruit distributor.

In 1955, Cheng entered National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) as an architecture student. While enrolled at NCKU, he was offered an application to join the Kuomintang (KMT) ruling party, but chose not to join, stating that he thought it was unfair that economic benefits were disproportionately distributed to party members. After graduating and fulfilling his compulsory military service, he returned to NCKU in 1960 as a teaching assistant. However, since he was not a KMT member, the school could not continue to employ him and he was dismissed after two weeks. He left Tainan and started work as a teaching assistant in the recently formed Chung Yuan Christian College of Science and Engineering Department of Architecture instead, leaving in 1962 to study in the United States. On April 24, 1970, Cheng and Huang carried out the attempted assassination. Although Cheng intended to be the assassin, Huang volunteered in consideration of Cheng's wife and children. While Cheng was handing out pamphlets and shouting as a distraction, Huang approached Chiang with a gun at the Plaza Hotel, but a Diplomatic Security Service special agent pushed him out of the way, causing the bullet to strike the hotel's revolving doors. Cheng hurried to Huang's side once the gun was fired, and both men were arrested.

WUFI later issued a statement disclaiming involvement. Huang pleaded guilty in a 1971 trial to charges of attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm, but was granted bail before sentencing, and fled the United States. Cheng pleaded innocent to attempted murder, but was convicted after a WUFI colleague testified he had given the weapon to Cheng. Cheng applied for a writ of habeas corpus while he was detained in the United Kingdom, but this was refused in 1972 and an appeal was denied in 1973. and spent 22 months in jail.

After 1973 Cheng was released from prison at the end of 1974 and returned to Sweden, living there for more than eight years, and later lived in Canada for eight more years.

Cheng returned to Taiwan in June 1991 to attend his father's funeral. He filed the winning design for the 228 Massacre Monument in 228 Peace Memorial Park while imprisoned for illegal entry. He served as the party's chairman. Cheng ran as a third-party candidate in the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election, alongside running mate . Cheng's campaign ended in November 2023, as he only recorded 473 valid signatures of at least 289,667 required signatures, or 1.5 percent of all eligible voters in the 2020 presidential election, to be considered for the 2024 ballot. In September 2024, the Taiwanese justice ministry overturned Cheng's conviction for illegal entry into Taiwan. In March 2025, he applied for compensation amounting to NT$1.825 million over his detention under the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice dealing with abuses committed under the pre-1992 Kuomintang regime.