He was a retired admiral of the Republic of China Navy, and later entered the cabinet as Minister of National Defense from 2015 to 2016.

Kao Kuang-chi was succeeded by Yen Ming after his official appointment by the Executive Yuan on 8 August 2013.

Kao Kuang-chi replaced Yen as the ROC Chief of the General Staff on 8 August 2013.

[3] Kao submitted his resignation on 8 April due to the Boeing AH-64 Apache scandal[4] in Taiwan.

During the handover ceremony, Lin praised his predecessor accomplishments during Yen's tenure in pushing for complete military judicial system reforms and for better protecting human rights protection of military personnel.