Ex-Government Information Office head Shaw Yu-ming dead at 87

Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) Shaw Yu-ming (邵玉銘), the former head of Taiwan's now-defunct Government Information Office, died Saturday at the age of 87, according to veteran journalist Susan Yeh (葉樹姍).

Yeh disclosed Shaw's death in a message in the LINE group for the Republic of China chapter of the Asociación Mundial de Mujeres Periodistas y Escritoras (AMMPE), or the World Association of Women Journalists and Writers.

Shaw's widow, Chin Hsiu-li (靳秀麗), is a board director of the AMMPE's ROC chapter.

Shaw was born on Nov. 3, 1938, in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo's Binjiang Province, now China's Heilongjiang Province, before he followed his parents to Taiwan in 1948.

After receiving a bachelor's degree from National Chengchi University (NCCU)'s Department of Diplomacy, Shaw earned a master's degree from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago.

Shaw returned to Taiwan in 1982 and taught in NCCU's Department of Diplomacy, later heading the university's graduate program in diplomacy and the Institute of International Relations.

From 1987 to 1991, Shaw served as director general of the Government Information Office (GIO). During his term, martial law was lifted in Taiwan, restrictions on the press were eased, and a ban preventing military veterans who followed Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to Taiwan in 1949 from returning to China to visit relatives was also removed.

Shaw was the public face of the government for these policy changes and also announced the death of Chiang Kai-shek's son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who became president in 1978 and lifted martial law in 1987.

Shaw also served as the Kuomintang's (KMT) deputy secretary general, the head of the then Coordination Council for North American Affairs, now known as the Taiwan Council for U.S. Affairs (TCUSA), and chairman of the Public Television Service (PTS).

The GIO was dissolved in 2012, with its international information department placed under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its domestic information department under the Executive Yuan.