Kuan Bi-ling

Kuan Bi-ling (; born 9 December 1956) is a Taiwanese political scientist, lawyer, and politician who is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party. She is the incumbent Minister of Ocean Affairs Council, having assumed office under the Chen Chien-jen cabinet in 2023. She previously served as a member of the Legislative Yuan between 2005 and 2023, winning three consecutive elections, including the highly competitive 2008 legislative election after the introduction of the single-member district system which halved the total seats from 225 to 113.

Early life and education Kuan Bi-ling was born to a Hakka Chinese father and a Hoklo Taiwanese mother. She graduated from National Chung Hsing University with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and a Master of Laws (LL.M.), then earned her Ph.D. with honors in political science from National Taiwan University in 1994. Her doctoral dissertation, completed under professor Chin-nung Chuang (莊錦農), was titled, "Nationalism and Taiwan's Party Politics" (Chinese: 民族主義與臺灣政黨政治).

Early career Director General, Kaohsiung City Bureau of Cultural Affairs Director General, Kaohsiung City Department of Information 8th and 10th DPP Central Party Headquarters Central Executive Committee Deputy Director, President Chen Shui-Bian Knowledge Taiwan Election Campaign Group Spokesperson, Women's Headquarters, Mayor Chen Shui-bian Re-Election Campaign Spokesperson, Alliance for Supervision of Constitutional Reform Secretary General, Taiwan Association of University Professor Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University

Political career Kuan won a seat in the 2008 Taiwanese legislative election held on 12 January 2008, representing Constituency 2 of Kaohsiung City.

Personal life Kuan is married to Hsu Yang-ming.

Controversy Physical confrontation in the Education and Culture Committee On 22 October 2008, Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu of the Chinese Nationalist Party injured an eye of Kuan's parliament assistant (PA) while pushing a poster away during a budget review session of the National Science Council in the Education and Culture Committee, so Kuan stood up in argument with Hung till finally slapped Hung's face and Hung pinched Kuan's cheeks, and both legislators refused to apologize. Kuan states: "When one is faced with repression, one should stand straight, refuse to give in and fight against oppression and hegemony." Hung launched a lawsuit against Kuan for two years until a judge persuaded both sides to reconcile with each other, and shared chocolate together in peace on 29 July 2010.

Supporting the languages development act

The 2018 Development of National Languages Act stipulates the government offices to provide the interpretation services for the citizens participating in administrative, legislative, and judicial procedures to freely choose to use their national languages, so the Legislative Yuan activated the interpreter service for the parliament session in real time accordingly. On 27 September 2021, after following the steps to apply in advance with 3 Taiwanese interpreters been present ready, Minister of National Defense, Chiu Kuo-cheng rejected to speak Taiwanese, nor accepted the interpreter's real-time service at site, but brought the deputy minister Zong-hsiao Li as his own interpreter, and insisted in the 3-way translation pattern sentence by sentence. Chiu repeatedly interrupted the question process by asking Chen to speak Mandarin Chinese for easier communication, or the session time cannot be lengthened to accommodate the interpretation, Taipei City Councilor Miao Poya also explained that the multi-lingual working environment is essential for a healthy mind without the "Chinese Language Supremacy" attitude to achieve the international level in diversity, equality and mutual respect for a modern state.