Peng Ming-min (; 15 August 19238 April 2022) was a Taiwanese democracy activist, advocate of Taiwan independence, legal scholar, and politician. Arrested for sedition in 1964 for printing a manifesto advocating democracy in his native Taiwan, he escaped to Sweden, before taking a post as a university teacher in the United States. After 22 years in exile he returned to become the Democratic Progressive Party's first presidential candidate in Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996.
Early life and education
Peng was born in Taichū Prefecture on August 15, 1923, to a prominent and wealthy family of Taiwanese doctors. He received his primary education in Taiwan before going to Tokyo for secondary education, graduating from Kwansei Gakuin Middle School in 1939 and the Third Higher School in 1942. During World War II, he studied law and political science at the Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo). At the end of the war, in order to avoid the American bombing of Japan's capital, he decided to go to his brother near Nagasaki. En route to his brother, he lost his left arm in a bombing raid. While recuperating at his brother's house, he witnessed the second atomic blast that destroyed the city of Nagasaki.
After the Japanese surrender, Peng returned to Taiwan and enrolled at National Taiwan University. He was studying for his bachelor's degree in political science when the February 28 Incident occurred.
After receiving his bachelor's degree, Peng went on to pursue a master's degree (LL.M. 1953) at the Institute of Air and Space Law at the McGill University Faculty of Law in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he earned his LL.M. under John Cobb Cooper. He then completed doctoral studies in France and earned his doctoral degree in law at the University of Paris in 1954. During his studies, Peng wrote some of the first essays on international air law published in France, Canada and Japan. His publications attracted considerable international attention and distinguished Peng as a pioneer in the new field of international air law.
Academic career and exile
thumb|Peng Ming-min (center) with colleagues at National Taiwan University in 1954
Peng returned to Taiwan and in 1957, at age 34, he became the youngest full professor at the National Taiwan University. While Peng was a professor and chairman of the Department of Political Science from 1961 to 1962, he attracted the attention of Chiang Kai-shek and other Kuomintang (KMT) leaders. Chiang appointed Peng as the advisor to the Republic of China's delegation to the United Nations, then the highest political position held by any Taiwanese, and hinted of future high-level governmental appointments. He quoted: