Lin Yang-kang was born in 1927 in Yuchi, Nantou, and graduated in political science from National Taiwan University. People at home called him A-kang-peh, Uncle Kang, and he gave most of his speeches in Taiwanese.

He was elected magistrate of Nantou in 1967 and rose steadily from there: mayor of Taipei in 1976, governor of Taiwan Province in 1978, Minister of the Interior in 1981, vice premier in 1984, president of the Judicial Yuan in 1987. The path was part of Chiang Ching-kuo's promotion of Taiwanese-born officials; Lin belonged to the same cohort as Lee Teng-hui and was at one point seen as the other possible successor.

In February 1990 the Kuomintang split over how to nominate the eighth-term president, and the non-mainstream faction gathered signatures in the National Assembly to run Lin with Chiang Wei-kuo. The ticket never reached a vote: an eight-man group of party elders stepped in to mediate, and Lin withdrew.

Six years later, in the first direct presidential election, he ran as an independent with Hau Pei-tsun as his running mate, and the Kuomintang revoked both men's membership. He took about 1.6 million votes, 14.9 percent, and came third. He died in April 2013, aged eighty-five.