Chen You-cheng: Neihu Born and Raised

Chen You-cheng, aged 36, is running for Taipei city councilor in Neihu District, representing the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

While most young candidates in this election cycle come with prior political experience, few can match Chen’s early start in politics– he has been an assistant to former Taipei City Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan since he was 12.

24 years ago, Huang ran for city councilor in Neihu for the first time; she would go on to serve six consecutive terms as a city councilor. In her first election, she was elected with the highest number of votes in Taipei.

That same year, a young boy could be seen holding Huang’s microphone at events, passing out tissue packets at the market, and wearing her yellow election vest everywhere he followed her– that boy was Chen.

Chen grew up in a single-parent household. His mother worked as a realtor, which meant she was often busy. With no one to look after Chen on weekends, she dropped him off at Huang’s newly established campaign office to help out, where she knew he’d be kept busy and looked after.

“Who knew that helping out Huang would last for 24 years?” Chen said.

Every summer and winter break, from middle school to high school, Chen would intern at Huang’s, becoming more and more involved with the daily proceedings at the city councilor’s office. When Chen studied law at Aletheia University, he interned at Huang’s legal clinic, which offered free consultation to her constituents. After Chen graduated, his first job was becoming Huang’s political aide.

Together, Huang and Chen have seen eight elections. This year, they’ll both be running as candidates in Taipei city, with the former employer for mayor and Chen for city council.

“Out of all the new candidates, I’m perhaps one of the most experienced,” Chen said, citing his decade of service in Neihu, which includes up to 10,000 local cases involving negotiations, meetings, and legal consultation. These are the very services that city councilors are expected to offer.

While Chen said elected office was never part of his plan, this changed after he was offered a position by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je at the newly-established TPP as a spokesperson in 2019. Prior to this, Chen had no party affiliation.

In TPP, Chen has seen the party invest in youths, talent, and professionalism. In 2020, the party was the first to vet candidates for its list of at-large legislators via “audition.” While major parties often listed career politicians and special interest representatives, the TPP fielded its candidates based on merit.

“Even if they were young, even if they were just someone in their field, as long as they were outstanding enough, the TPP subsidized their election deposit,” Chen said, adding that in 2020, “the TPP wasn’t playing around– we were for real.”

The same model is applied to the local elections this year, with the TPP nominating candidates from a pool of local applicants that possesses unique experiences and shares their values. In Keelung, a TPP city councilor candidate famously listed her part-time experience at a McDonald’s on her resume.

Chen is among the many young, new candidates that the TPP has nominated this cycle. With an abundance of local experience and party involvement as a spokesperson, he was a natural pick for the heated contest in Neihu.

The Neihu-Nangang electoral district has historically been regarded as more of a pan-blue stronghold. Former KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu served five consecutive terms as a city councilor and one term as a legislator. Of course, this changed when DPP Legislator Kao Chia-yu flipped the district out of the blue in 2020.

“In the past, there were more pan-blue supporters than those pan-green, and the bases of support were very clearcut,” said Chen, “but Legislator Kao’s victory surely disrupted this pattern, in addition to the solidified threeway mayoral race between blue, white, and green this year.”

While the outcome of Chen’s city council bid is separate from that of the mayoral race, there is an undeniable link between a party’s city council candidates and its mayoral candidate– the media has dubbed this connection as the “hen effect,” with mayoral hens leading chicks to victory.

Huang is running as an independent, but she is largely recognized as the TPP’s hen in Taipei, as she aims to continue Ko’s legacy in Taipei. For Chen, having his former employer as the hen is doubly beneficial: not only knowing the lead candidate on a personal level but also gaining a former Neihu-Nangang representative's full-hearted endorsement.

“What they call the spillover effect is quite visible here,” said Chen, when describing how Huang’s candidacy relates to his, “because she is like a sun, and those that stand by her are in direct sunlight, visible to all.”

While direct exposure can be helpful to first-time candidates, it can also put them under the spotlight for topical issues such as the age-old traffic congestion problem at the Neihu Technology Park. Huang and her opponents have each proposed their solutions, but Chen is perhaps the most invested in Neihu’s problem, and also the most candid.

“The KMT city government planned the area for industrial use originally, only to designate it as a science park later,” said Chen, “so all of a sudden, we’re seeing over two times the people and traffic stuck in this area. No matter who leads the city, the problem can’t be solved immediately.”

Chen proposed a few fixes that may mitigate the traffic, but he said that the source of the problem is ultimately tied to unresolved issues such as the proposed relocation of Taipei Songshan Airport and highway management, issues that require coordination with the central government.

Also included in Chen’s platforms are solutions for housing justice, childcare, elderly care, environmental impact, and more issues that young adults may face in the city. His hope is for those like him, who are born and raised in this city, to be able to afford and strive in life.