Dr. Johnny Chiang was named by Time magazine to be one of the "100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future." He received his Ph.D. from the UofSC Department of Government and International Studies (currently the Department of Political Science) in 2002.  His dissertation examines globalization and the role of the state in contemporary political economy with a focus on the cases of Taiwan and India. 

After receiving the Ph.D. degree, he returned to Taiwan, his home country, working for the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research and Soochow University in Taipei. He later joined the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT) government to head the Government Information Office in the Cabinet. 

In 2012, he was elected to Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (Parliament) and was reelected in 2016 and 2020 from a district in central Taiwan. In 2020, he was elected the chairman of the KMT. The KMT ruled Taiwan from 1949 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2016, and is now the main opposition in Taiwan. Chiang was entrusted with the job of rejuvenating the party in a changing political environment in Taiwan.