Puma Shen

Puma Shen was born on June 7, 1982, in Taipei, Taiwan.^[3] His father, Shen Tu-cheng, runs a car manufacturing company, Sicuens International Co., LTD., that was sanctioned by the Chinese government in 2025.^[4]

After graduating from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, Shen studied law at National Taiwan University (NTU) and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 2004 as the valedictorian of his class.^[5] He then obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in criminal law from the NTU Graduate Institute of Law in 2008, completing a master's thesis titled, "Women, Subjectivity, and Criminal Law."^[6] In 2009, Shen completed military service in the Republic of China Armed Forces and was ranked first out of 3,000 soldiers.^[6]

During his time at NTU, Shen was influenced by his thesis advisor, Professor Mau-Sheng Lee [zh] (李茂生).^[7] Lee frequently took his students to visit juvenile prisons and correctional institutions, providing post-guidance counseling for troubled youth.^[8] Concurrently, Shen began working part-time at a cram school, where he taught criminal law to students preparing for the civil service exams, using the alias "Puma" (transliterated as 撲馬, Pūmǎ in Chinese).^[9][10]

After being a teacher for several years at the cram school, Shen left Taiwan to complete graduate studies in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a second LL.M. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2007.^[5][11] He then was awarded a full scholarship by the Taiwanese government to study penology at the University of California, Irvine, where he also focused on social ecology, urban design, social psychology, and criminology.^[6]

While studying for his doctorate, Shen was a student of economist Peter Navarro and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom. He earned his Ph.D. from Irvine in "criminology, law, and society" in 2017 under professors Henry Pontell and Elliott Currie. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Local Ideologies and Punishment for White-Collar Crime: A Comparison Between the U.S. and China."^[6]

After returning to Taiwan, Shen served as a faculty member at the Institute of Criminology, National Taipei University (NTPU). He initiated research on China's information warfare and cognitive operations towards Taiwan.^[12][9] He held various positions, including a member of the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee (2018–2020),^{[13][14][15][16]} director of Taiwan's official media Central News Agency,^[17] vice chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, co-founder of the civil defense education institution Kuma Academy,^[18] and the DoublethinkLab [zh] (台灣民主實驗室).

To facilitate Taiwan's collaboration with countries worldwide to defend against unfavorable actions from China, Shen developed the China Index, a metric illustrating the depth of influence exerted by the Beijing government on a particular country or region.^[12] In 2023, he was elected as a member of the World Movement for Democracy Committee.^[2]

In November 2023, Shen was nominated by the Democratic Progressive Party as a candidate on the list of legislators for nationwide and overseas, ranking second.^[19] He successfully won the election on January 13, 2024. He has expressed the necessity of legislative responses to various aspects of China's influence on Taiwan, including international law, propaganda warfare, and the need to address threats from Chinese agents and gray zone activities through legislation and national defense reforms.^[20] In May 2024, Shen with help from DPP colleagues climbed on top of a crowd of Kuomintang legislators during a brawl in the Legislative Yuan.^[21] He was dragged down by them and fell from the podium, requiring hospitalization.^[22][23]

Shen's wife, Tseng Hsin-hui (Chinese: 曾心慧; pinyin: Zēng Xīnhuì), is a lawyer who also teaches civil law at a cram school, using the pseudonym Chihiro (千尋).^[27] The couple has not had biological children but adopted a girl nicknamed "Mochi" (麻糬, Môa-chî).^[8]