Thomas Liao

Thomas Liao (22 March 1910 – 9 May 1986) was a Taiwanese independence activist and founding leader of the .

Early life, education, and military service Thomas Liao was born in present-day Xiluo, Yunlin County, on 22 March 1910, to a wealthy Presbyterian family of Hakka descent. His birth name was later changed to . Liao finished his secondary education in Kyoto, Japan, then enrolled at the University of Nanking to study mechanical engineering. Liao earned graduate degrees in the United States, completing a master's at the University of Michigan and a doctorate in chemical engineering at Ohio State University. and his children were raised in the United States. as director of the municipal bus system and the city's Public Works Bureau. He stood for election to the in 1946. Free China Review reported that Liao tied with three other candidates after one of his votes was invalidated due to the presence of an "ink stain". Liao lost after lots were drawn. On 1 September 1955, he convened the Provisional Congress of the Republic of Formosa in Japan.

In 1964, the Kuomintang identified an underground branch of Liao's Formosan Democratic Independence Party in Taiwan, then sentenced his mother to prison, and his nephew to death. Shortly after his return, Liao was named founding director of the graduate school of chemical engineering at the College of Chinese Culture by Chang Ch'i-yun.

Death and legacy Liao died on 9 May 1986.

Liao's granddaughter Kim Liao searched for stories and information about him, having never learned about him growing up in the United States, and wrote about him and her grandmother Anna in Where Every Ghost Has a Name: A Memoir of Taiwanese Independence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).