Pillar of Taiwanese democracy
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, who brought direct elections and other democratic changes to the self-governed island despite missile launches and other fierce saber-rattling by China, has died. He was 97.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital said Lee died Thursday after suffering from infections, cardiac problems and organ failure.
Lee strove to create a separate, non-Chinese identity for Taiwan, angering not only China, which considers the island part of its territory, but also members of his Nationalist Party who hoped to return victorious to the mainland.
Lee later openly endorsed formal independence for the island but illness in his later years prompted him to largely withdraw from public life.
“President Lee’s contribution to Taiwan’s democratic journey was irreplaceable and his death is a great loss for the country,” current President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement.
Physically imposing and charismatic, Lee spanned Taiwan’s modern history and was native to the island, unlike many who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war. At times gruff, at times personable, he left little doubt he was the man in charge in almost any setting. “A leader must be tough and strong enough so he can put an end to disputes and chaotic situations,” he wrote in his autobiography.
He was born in a farming community near Taipei on Jan 15, 1923, near the midpoint of Japan’s half-century colonial rule. The son of a Japanese police aide, he volunteered in the Imperial Japanese Army and returned to Taiwan as a newly commissioned second lieutenant to help man an anti-aircraft battery.
In 1971, Lee joined the governing Nationalist Party. As a descendant of the people who migrated to the island from China in the 17th and 18th centuries, he was part of the party’s effort to broaden its base beyond the 1949 arrivals from the mainland. He was Taipei mayor, Taiwan province governor and vice-president before succeeding to the presidency in 1988.
In 1990, Lee signalled his support for student demands for direct elections of Taiwan’s president and vice-president and the end of reserving legislative seats to represent districts on the Chinese mainland. The following year he oversaw the dismantling of emergency laws put into effect by Chiang Kai-shek’s government, effectively reversing the Nationalists’ long-standing goal of returning to the mainland and removing the Communists from power.
Communist China saw the democratic steps as a direct threat to its claim to Taiwan, and its anger was exacerbated when Lee visited the United States in 1995. China began a series of threatening military manoeuves off the coast of mainland Fujian province that included the firing of missiles just off Taiwan’s coast. More missiles were fired immediately before the March 1996 presidential elections, and the U.S. response was to send aircraft carrier battle groups to Taiwan’s east coast in a show of support. Taiwanese were uncowed and the elections went ahead, with Lee victorious.