Koo Chen-fu (, 6 January 1917 – 3 January 2005), also known as C.F. Koo, was a Taiwanese businessman and diplomat. He led the

Koos Group The Koos Group (KGI; ) is a Taiwan-based pan-Asian business group involved in a vast range of industries, which include banking, manufacturing, petrochemicals, electronics, leasing, cement, financial services, hospitality, real estate, private equit ...

of companies from 1940 until his death. As a chairman of the

Straits Exchange Foundation The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF; ; often abbreviated as 海基會) is a semiofficial organization set up by the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to handle technical and/or business matters with the People's Republic of China (P ...

(SEF), Koo arranged the first direct talks between Taiwan and mainland China since 1949 and served as Taiwan's negotiator in both the 1993 and 1998 Wang-Koo summit. He was also a film producer and produced a number of Taiwanese films between 1973 and 1982, such as '' Love, Love, Love'' (1974), ''

Eight Hundred Heroes ''Eight Hundred Heroes'' () is a 1976 Taiwanese historical war drama film directed by Ting Shan-hsi about the Defense of Sihang Warehouse in 1937 Shanghai, China. The film was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Fi ...

'' (1975), ''

Heroes of the Eastern Skies ''Heroes of the Eastern Skies'' (; pinyin: ''jianqiao yinglie zhuan''), is a Chinese war drama filmed in Taiwan, R.O.C. and based on the true story of a small group of Chinese flying aces in 1937 at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, s ...

'' (1977), '' The Coldest Winter in Peking'' (1981), and ''

Attack Force Z ''Attack Force Z'' (alternatively titled ''The Z Men'') is a 1982 Australian-Taiwanese World War II film directed by Tim Burstall. It is loosely based on actual events and was filmed in Taiwan in 1979. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festiv ...

'' (1982).

Early life

Born in northern Taiwan into a wealthy family headed by his father

Koo Hsien-jung Koo Hsien-jung (; Romaji: Ko Ken’ei; 2 February 1866 – 9 December 1937) was a Taiwanese businessman and politician who enjoyed strong links to the colonial administration of Taiwan under Japanese rule. He founded the Koos Group of co ...

, Koo attended

Taihoku Imperial University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

(now National Taiwan University). He inherited a substantial fortune and a business upon his father's death in 1937. Koo graduated in 1940 and pursued a graduate degree in Japan. Koo was jailed in 1946 for 19 months on treason charges for helping Japanese. After his release, he took refuge in Hong Kong and only returned to Taiwan in 1949 to marry his wife, . He focused on running

as well as on his political career that led to his elevation to the central committee of

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

SEF Chairmanship

Koo was the founding chairman of the

(SEF). On 16 December 1991, a little over ten months after the establishment of the SEF, the authorities of

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

(PRC) set up the

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits The Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS; ; often abbreviated as 海协会 / 海協會) is an organization set up by the People's Republic of China for handling technical and business matters with the Republic of ...

(ARATS), with

Wang Daohan Wang Daohan (), (27 March 1915 – 24 December 2005) was a Chinese politician who was president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) from 1991 to 2005. Biography Wang was born in Jiashan County (present day Minggu ...

as its chairman. The following year Koo and Wang held preliminary talks in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

that resulted in the so-called "

1992 Consensus The 1992 Consensus is a political term referring to the alleged outcome of a meeting in 1992 between the semiofficial representatives of the People's Republic of China (PRC) of mainland China and the Republic of China (ROC) of Taiwan. They are of ...

" and facilitated negotiations of practical matters. However, the content and the existence of this "1992 consensus" is widely disputed. In 2001, Koo publicly affirmed that the meeting did not result in a consensus on the issue of "one-China". In April 1993, Koo and Wang met in Singapore to hold the first formal discussions between Taipei and Beijing since 1949. The two met again in Shanghai in 1998. On 18 October 1998, Koo met

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader o ...

, in Beijing, in what was then the highest-level talks yet held between the two sides. The talks were called off by Beijing in 1999 after ROC President

Lee Teng-hui Lee Teng-hui (; 15 January 192330 July 2020) was a Taiwanese statesman and economist who served as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under Constitution of the Republic of China, the 1947 C ...

proposed his two-states theory.

Death

Koo Chen-fu died of renal cancer on the morning of 3 January 2005 at the age of 87.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koo, Chen-fu 1917 births 2005 deaths Deaths from cancer in Taiwan Hokkien businesspeople Deaths from kidney cancer Koo family of Lukang National Taiwan University alumni University of Tokyo alumni Senior Advisors to President Lee Teng-hui Businesspeople from Taipei Taiwanese people of Hoklo descent Politicians of the Republic of China on Taiwan from Taipei Taiwanese film producers Kuomintang politicians in Taiwan Senior Advisors to President Chen Shui-bian Taiwanese prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Taiwan