After graduating, he left Taiwan to study at Santa Clara University in the United States, where he completed a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.).

[2] On 23 March 1996, Huang ran for the 1996 Taiwanese National Assembly election for Taitung County Constituency in which he and two other Kuomintang (KMT) candidates won and took office on 20 May 1996.

On 11 December 2004, Huang ran for the 2004 Republic of China legislative election for Taitung County Constituency in which he won again and took office on 1 February 2005.

[4] In his 'Governor's Column', Justin Huang vowed to “Clean up corruption" in Taitung politics,[5] and “Listen to the people... not lazy bureaucrats” in order to create jobs through development.

Justin Huang received generally high popularity rankings while serving as Taitung Magistrate although discrepancies between different polls are evident.

[13] [14] In 2008, Huang was indicted on charges about accepting bribes or using his position as legislator in relation to the Lotus (美時公司), Fisherman (派頓製藥公司), and I Sheng Pharmaceutical companies (羿盛公司) in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

[21] Huang’s own party, the KMT, threatened to expel him for accepting a DPP nomination without prior consultation, while several DPP legislatures voiced concerns, including Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬), who wrote: “It is incomprehensible that the proposed nominee for vice president is someone who has been convicted of corruption, and helped a business push through the controversial development of the Taitung Miramar Resort (美麗灣渡假村)... by flouting the law and the rights of Aboriginals.” The New Power Party cited Huang’s role in promoting Miramar Resort as well as “his alleged acceptance of fees from pharmaceutical firms when he was a legislator and other legal disputes.”[22] In response, Huang held a press conference, where he announced: “If the KMT doesn’t support my nomination, I will withdraw from the party.” He then thanked President Tsai for her trust in him, saying he sought the position because “the Control Yuan exercises independent power beyond all party affiliations, and this is a role where I could do something for the nation and for society.”[23] Following continued opposition, the next day Huang announced he had decided to withdraw from the nomination.