End of an Epoch for Taiwan: The Life of Lee Teng-hui

Former president of Taiwan Lee Teng-hui died on July 30th, 7:24pm local time. He was 97 years old. He is widely considered to be the greatest statesman of modern Taiwan.

Early life

He was born outside of Taipei in 1923, when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. He would later study at Kyoto Imperial University, and briefly enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II as a second lieutenant.

After the war, Taiwan was occupied by the Republic of China regime. He rose to prominence as a technical bureaucrat within the government, and later received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in agricultural economics. In 1978, he was appointed mayor of Taipei, and in 1981 he was again appointed as governor of Taiwan Province. In 1984, he was appointed by President Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, as Vice President.

During this time the ROC government was a one-party state controlled by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and to be appointed by the KMT top brass to these positions meant that Lee was adept at managing internal politics of the party, especially as a Taiwan-born bureaucrat inside an elite class made up exclusively of mainlanders who fled from China after 1949.

Taiwanization and democratization

His brilliance in political maneuvering would later serve him in what is now considered his biggest achievement: steering Taiwan towards democracy, as well as starting the process of nation-building for a sovereign Taiwanese national identity.

In 1988, after Chiang died, Lee became President, the first president in Taiwan to be born in Taiwan, as well as the first non-interim president that was not from the Chiang family. He steadily consolidated power, and let key members of opposing factions into the cabinet, like appointing KMT military general Hau Pei-tsun, as premier.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s democratization and independence movements had reached a crescendo. Various members of what were considered illegal underground organizations have just formed the first opposition political party, the Democratic Progressive Party, and in 1990 college students staged the Wild Lily Movement, demanding for open elections of top government posts.

Lee eventually agreed to meet with student protesters, and agreed to begin opening up elections for the National Assembly, the Legislative Yuan, and eventually the president, through a series of constitutional amendments. Until then, these positions were never elected in Taiwan; the original representatives from China before 1949 occupied these seats indefinitely. His meeting with the protesters is also in stark contrast with the Tiananmen Square student protests in Beijing just a few years before, when troops brutally massacred peaceful protesters.

In 1996, Lee ran in the first direct presidential election, against Dr. Peng Ming-min of the DPP. Lee won with 54% of the vote.

Taiwan-China relations  

Lee also oversaw the beginning of contact with the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. During the 12 years as president. In 1990, his government formed the National Unification Council, which announced the Guidelines for National Unification the following year. The Guidelines reflect the transitional nature of Taiwan-China relations of this time: it declares Taiwan and the mainland to be parts of the same “China,” yet insists on equal footing and a gradual approach that respects the rights of the people of Taiwan.

Then in 1992, representatives from both sides met, and the results of that meeting has come to be known as the 1992 Consensus, with Taiwan stating that the consensus means both sides agree Taiwan is part of China, but disagree about which government legitimately represents China.

In 1999, Lee pushed the Taiwan position further with his special state-to-state framework, which calls on Beijing to recognize that de facto Taiwan and China are two states, rather than a relationship between two entities within the same state.

Later life 

The DPP’s Chen Shui-bian won the presidential election in 2000, and Lee stepped down amid accusations that he caused the split between two of his proteges within the KMT, that led to a three way race allowing Chen to win.

Since then, Lee has left the center of power, but still exerts influence on Taiwan’s political scene. He formed the Taiwan Solidarity Union in 2001, originally meant to be a centrist coalition but quickly became a more purist Taiwan statehood party.

Lee himself has also become more outspoken about his personal philosophies, and his formative experience as a Japanese subject and soldier. He has commented on Taiwanese national identity, the Japanese experience of pre-war Taiwanese people, and the future of Taiwan’s politics and economy.

Legacy 

Lee Teng-hui’s life and career are a microcosm of Taiwan’s 20th century history itself. His life spanned three different identities for Taiwan: as a Japanese colony, as occupied Chinese territory, and as a Taiwanese state in its own right—which came about in large part due to his own efforts. His career also spanned two periods of Taiwan’s political development; he succeeded Taiwan’s last strongman and was also Taiwan’s first elected president.

His lifetime was marked by flux. On Taiwan’s democracy, through his work and the decisions made by all the stakeholders, Taiwan went on a road of peaceful and gradual transition. A grand compromise of sorts was made: the KMT would willingly give up its one-party state, but in exchange most of the KMT patronage and crony networks would live on. As a result, Taiwan’s democracy did not come with mass social upheaval, a rarity within the Third Wave democracies. Yet, Taiwan is still knee-deep grappling with issues of transitional justice, as well as stagnation on what to do with old Republic of China state symbols, such as the name, flag, and constitution. Taiwanese citizens don’t think much about these issues nowadays.

On relations with China, the 1990s was also a time when Taiwan was searching for creative ways to coexist with the PRC, at the same time adjusting its own identity from Chinese to Taiwanese. As the leader of the rump regime that is the ROC and the Chinese Nationalist Party, Lee had to make compromises along the way to make small gains during his career. As such, he was also a controversial figure; he has been accused of being both sheltering the KMT’s corruption and of a traitor to his party and the idea of a united China.

Finally a bit of a personal note. My own grandmother was born a year after Lee, and also passed away this year. She also lived through the same transitions in Taiwan’s history, and their passing made an especially strong impression on me, that an epoch is really behind us.

In many ways, Taiwan has already moved on from Lee’s time; Lee’s career was about statesmanship, about compromise, about setting things in motion down a road, without possibly knowing how that road will unfold. In 2020, our times are different. We have been on this road, and we demand resolutions to last century’s residual problems as we face brand new challenges. Will another brilliant statesman like Lee Teng-hui emerge from Taiwan? We may need one soon, but for now, it looks unlikely.

(Feature photo from Twitter account of Taiwanese legislator Wang Ting-yu, @MPWangTingyu)