CHIANG Hsiao-yung, the grandson of Taiwan's late leader, General Chiang Kai-shek, died on Sunday, aged 47. A former businessman, he died at the Veterans General Hospital only days after being readmitted for various complications due to throat cancer, his doctors said.

He was the youngest son of Chiang Ching-kuo, son and successor of General Chiang, who led his Nationalist followers to Taiwan in 1949 after the Communist takeover of the Chinese mainland.

Aware of his illness, the younger Chiang proposed last July to remove his father's and grandfather's remains for reburial in China to honor the Chinese concept of burying one in one's hometown.

Hsiao-yung's proposal was supported by his uncle, Wego, who was also admitted to the Veteran's Hospital last week for treatment for kidney problems. The request was rejected by the government.

The remains of the General and his son, who died in 1975 and 1988, respectively, are kept in a mausoleum near Taipei. The government promised to bury them in China after the reunification of Taiwan and the mainland.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province, and in a tacit admission that reunification may not come soon, Taiwan's government last week promised to give the

two Chiangs state burials in Taiwan.

Hsiao-yung's older brothers Hsiao-wen died of diabetes in 1989, and his other older brother, Hsiao-wu, died of heart failure and inflammation of the pancreas two years later. His only surviving sibling, older sister Hsiao-kang, lives in the United States.

Hsiao-yung is survived by his mother, Faina, a wife, and two sons.