Physically imposing and charismatic, Lee Teng-hui spanned Taiwan’s modern history and strove to create a separate, non-Chinese identity for the island
Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui waves to the crowd outside the presidential palace, in Taipei, in an undated file photo.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 sabre-rattling by China, has died. He was 97.
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. 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 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.
China soon began a series of threatening military manoeuvres 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.
Lee himself backed away from wanting a formal declaration of independence for Taiwan, insisting it already was, given the island was not Chinese Communist-controlled.
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