American Military News by Ralph Jennings - Los Angeles Times October 30, 2020
Lee Teng-hui, the first Taiwan-born president of this island state whose prickly relationship with China and unbending passion for self-rule set the tone for every leader who followed, has died at a hospital in Taipei. He was 97.
Active until late in life, Lee died Thursday evening after suffering from infections, cardiac problems and organ failure since being hospitalized in February, Taipei Veterans General Hospital said, according to the Associated Press.
Few political figures in Taiwan have cast as long a shadow as Lee. He oversaw the end of martial law, loudly rejected Beijing’s pursuit of unifying China and Taiwan, and led an ambitious foreign policy aimed at winning allies around the world. For years, China fumed at his provocations.
President for 12 years beginning in 1988, Lee stepped onto the world stage in 1996 when he suggested Taiwan adopt a “special state-to-state relationship†with China — the antithesis of Beijing’s prized unification goal. In response, China flexed its muscles by testing missiles off Taiwan’s coastline, letting that dramatic display signal its feelings about Lee’s pursuit of democracy.
Lee’s idea for an autonomous Taiwan took root when he was growing up during Japan’s oppressive colonial rule of his homeland, said Anna Chou, a departmental director with the Taiwan Solidarity Union political party, which considers the former president its “spiritual leader,†though he was neither a member nor a founder of the group.
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