Puma Shen

A Democratic Progressive Party legislator on an at-large seat since February 2024, he co-founded the Kuma Academy civil defence group and Doublethink Lab. He is the DPP's candidate for Taipei mayor in the 28 November 2026 local elections.

Career

Shen holds law degrees from National Taiwan University (LL.B., LL.M.) and the University of Pennsylvania (LL.M.), and a PhD in criminology from UC Irvine (2017). He teaches at National Taipei University's Institute of Criminology, researching information warfare and cognitive operations aimed at Taiwan. He served on the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee (2018-2020), co-founded the Kuma Academy and Doublethink Lab, and has sat in the Legislative Yuan since February 2024. He announced his Taipei mayoral bid in May 2026 and was named the DPP nominee.

Positions

Shen is known for work on disinformation, national security and the threat Taiwan faces from China, as Taipei Times describes him. He promotes civil defence education through the Kuma Academy and developed a 'China Index' measuring Beijing's influence abroad. He sits in the Democratic Progressive Party, which Wikipedia places at the centre-left and which favours closer ties with Japan and the United States. His campaign is run by fellow legislators including Rosalia Wu.

Controversies

China's Taiwan Affairs Office sanctioned Shen in October 2024, calling him a diehard separatist. On 28 October 2025 the Chongqing public security bureau opened a criminal investigation into him for alleged secession crimes, and Chinese authorities have listed him as wanted. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council rejected it, saying Chinese law has no authority over Taiwanese citizens, and Taiwanese officials called it transnational repression. In June 2025 China had also penalised his father and the father's company.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · TVBS News · Taipei Times · Wikipedia