Chien Chi was born in 1903 in Fengshan, near Kaohsiung, and began his career as a public-school teacher. Confronted daily by pupils too hungry and overworked in the fields to learn, he came to believe that no amount of teaching could help them until their families were freed from exploitation — so he laid down the chalk and took up organising. Inspired by the Erhlin farmers, in 1926 he founded the Taiwan Farmers' Union, welding scattered local disputes into the largest mass movement of the colonial era, with tens of thousands of members across the island. He crisscrossed Taiwan by bicycle rallying tenant farmers against landlords and sugar companies, and was jailed repeatedly for his activism. After the war his convictions led him into the underground Communist organisation on the island, and in the White Terror he was arrested and executed in 1951. Chien Chi is remembered as the tireless organiser who gave Taiwan's farmers a collective voice.

• Founded the island-wide Taiwan Farmers' Union (1926)

• Executed in the White Terror (1951)