Wu studied history at National Taiwan University and later joined the faculty after completing his doctorate at the University of Tokyo. He specialized in the history of Taiwan. By 2001, Wu joined the Executive Yuan as vice chairman of the Council of Cultural Affairs. While working at the CCA, he remained on the NTU faculty. In 2002, Wu and the CCA established a task force to investigate missing artifacts held by the National Taiwan Museum. Wu joined the Democratic Progressive Party in July of that year. In his CCA capacity, Wu acted as council spokesman and addressed several groups, among them the European Union Study Association–Taiwan and Ketagalan Academy. In September 2003, Wu announced that the CCA had drafted the National Languages Development Law, ensuring that Taiwan would not have an official language, in turn allowing local governments to choose a suitable language for communication. Wu was supportive of Taichung mayor Jason Hu's unsuccessful attempt to bring a branch of the Guggenheim Museum to the city. In April 2004, Wu visited Europe as CCA vice chair to discuss storage of historical documents. He left the CCA in 2004, and returned to National Taiwan University. Wu subsequent endeavors included a set of bilingual comic books on Taiwan's history, published in 2005, and a documentary on Lee Teng-hui's leadership during the democratization of Taiwan, released in 2006. Wu's other publications include Liu Yung-fu in the Yiwei Battle, contributions to The Expedition to Formosa, and International View of the 228 Incident. By 2007, Wu had become the director of the National Museum of Taiwan History, which was scheduled to open the next year. Previously, in 2004, Wu had contributed records of Taiwan's opium production during the Japanese era to the museum. In 2016, Wu was appointed director of and to the board of the. In August 2016, Wu stated that Academia Historica would be enforcing access restrictions to documents within its archives codified by Freedom of Government Information Act. As the institute's director, Wu worked with the Tsai Ing-wen presidential administration to compile records of persecution, namely relating to the 228 incident of 1947. By June 2017, the Academia Historica under Wu's leadership had released 260,000 documents for publication online. Wu has continually advocated for the declassification and publication of documents from several periods of the history of the Republic of China during his time with the Memorial Foundation of 228 and Academia Historica. In February 2019, Wu was appointed as Director of National Palace Museum.
