Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy in Taiwan's Politics

Democratic Consolidation and External Relations

Bruce Dickson, Chien-Min Chao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315290393
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The 12 years of Lee Teng-hui's presidency were marked by a series of contrary trends such as progress in the consolidation of Taiwan's democracy, and periodic conflicts with China. This book assesses the complex legacy of Lee Teng-hui by looking at his accomplishments and setbacks.

Part I
Introduction

1
Introduction

Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy

Chien-min Chao and Bruce J. Dickson

The Lee Teng-hui Legacy

Assessing the legacy of President Lee Teng-hui is not an easy task. During the twelve years of his presidency (1988–2000), he presented different personas at different times and to different people. At the beginning of his administration, he seemed a relatively weak leader, perhaps only a transitional figure, because he lacked strong support among the other leaders in his party and government; by the time he left office, he was criticized for an authoritarian leadership style. He shattered the myth that democracy is not for Chinese consumption and went on to establish the first democratic regime in Chinese history, but he also damaged the quality of Taiwan's democracy by cooperating with criminal elements and corrupt local leaders in election campaigns. He skillfully explored and maximized the hidden energies that Taiwanese society had accumulated during the course of economic and political development, but he also exploited ethnic divisions for his political purposes, sending ethnic tensions to new and more visible heights, the repercussions of which still ripple through the political system. He transformed the Kuomintang (KMT) from a mainlander-dominated party to one that readily adopted policies and programs popular with the Taiwanese society, but he also weakened his party through personal conflicts, factional struggles, and controversial policy initiatives. After he left office, he was expelled from the KMT. He adopted a more flexible foreign policy and opened negotiations and regular contacts with mainland China, but he also exposed Taiwan to an unprecedented level of danger. He brought Taiwan to the center of attention in the global arena by staging the first direct presidential election and visiting the United States, the first such visit by an incumbent president of his country, but these same actions also brought unwanted attention. On the eve of the first presidential election in March 1996, Beijing staged missile tests and war games off the coast of Taiwan, putting it on the brink of an international conflict. In a later surprise move, he put forth his theory of "state to state relations" in 1999 as a formula to regulate relations between the two sides across the Taiwan Strait, putting the island and its people again at grave risk. For his loyal supporters, he is "Mr. Democracy" and the "father of Taiwan,"¹ but for his critics, he not only betrayed and possibly decimated the KMT party that he had led for twelve years but also split the country and divided the society in the process. It is these distinctly contrasting features that characterize Lee's legacy.

For his admirers in Taiwan, he is a true native son, a person who really understands their minds and speaks to their hearts; a grand reformer who elevated Taiwan to a level of development never matched by any dynasty in the history of China and with a speed that brought acclaim from observers around the world; and a strong nationalist who made "Taiwan first" a stock phrase for politicians of all ideological stripes. Indeed, during those years, he captivated the attention of the people of the country so intensely that he became the focal point of Taiwan, leading the country and the society to whatever goals he envisioned.

A Native Son

Except for only a very brief time before Taiwan was ceded to Japan after the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894, native Taiwanese never had the opportunity to govern their island. As the first Taiwanese president, Lee ushered in a new era in which all resources, political and otherwise, would be redistributed. No one else understood the meaning of that better than Lee himself. He adroitly used the campaign known as "Taiwanization" to consolidate his power by exploiting the ethnic differences and by portraying his opponents as not only conservative but also anti-Taiwanese. In the end, both the state and the society were reshaped.

Lee's predecessor, Chiang Ching-kuo, was also a populist, but one of a very different type. Chiang disliked businessmen and preferred making friends with ordinary people, especially the underprivileged. He enjoyed eating simple meals at roadside stands. He led the kind of thrifty and simple life that was in sharp contrast with that of his father, Chiang Kai-shek, and indeed most national leaders.² But Lee exemplified another dimension of the word populism. He spoke the same language as the ordinary people, the southern Fukienese dialect. He understood them and shared their grief, embracing the people and their history. He was caught in the margins of the notorious incident of February 28, 1947, as were so many other native Taiwanese.³ Having just returned from Japan and newly enrolled at National Taiwan University, he was warned of impending arrests and took refuge in a friend's home until the crackdown subsided. Decades later, after he rose to top positions in the party, he was determined to take on political taboos, particularly concerning the KMT's past conduct. To heal the wounds left from the February 28 incident, he authorized a research report on the events and their aftermath, plus built a memorial to the victims and offered financial payments to their families. These steps to rectify past wrongs, honor those afflicted by the tragedy, and compensate families of the victims won him praise as a local hero, a reputation previously enjoyed only by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Under Lee's leadership, Taiwan rewrote its history to orient and center around the island itself, shifting away from its past history as a part of China. To him, the political beliefs, values, and orientations that influenced and shaped Taiwan were all too "exotic" and "Chinese," a theme emphasized in Ya-li Lu's chapter. Taiwan needed to bring back a distinctively Taiwanese culture and value system. The beauty of Taiwan's geography, cultural traits, and local history were stressed and the attention given to the history and geography of mainland China were deemphasized. Local language, literature, poetry, theater arts, and the like were all promoted as part of the "Taiwan first" drama. Taiwanese dialect was rediscovered and elevated to a status almost equivalent to that of a national language. Lee's broken Mandarin was not to be laughed at but considered a distinctive trait to be cherished. In sum, Lee strove to make Taiwan a place worthy of examination and admiration on its own merits rather than a minuscule part of a once and future great power by the name of China. This may not have been the same sort of Taiwan independence that many opposition DPP politicians had in mind, but both Lee and the DPP shared the same goal of rediscovering and promoting the importance and beauty of Taiwan at the expense of the traditions and culture associated with China.

At the core of his Taiwanization drive was the redistribution of political resources. After the KMT retreated to Taiwan following its defeat in the Chinese civil war, most influential positions at all levels of the party and government bureaucracies were held by émigrés from the mainland and their offspring. In the early 1970s, Chiang Ching-kuo began the Taiwanization of the party and government in order to draw a new generation of talent into the KMT and to improve the KMT's reputation in society. He had to proceed slowly in this effort so as not to elicit opposition from powerful leaders and incumbent officials. The Taiwanization process accelerated under Lee. By the end of his presidency in 2000, native Taiwanese held the most important positions, including the presidency, vice-presidency, and the premiership, breaking a tradition of ethnic balancing set by his predecessor. He also set about adding Taiwanese officers to the top ranks of the military. The official name of the country, the Republic of China, was not abandoned, but the more fitting "ROC on Taiwan" became a popular substitute.⁴ Slogans like "Taiwan first," "stand on Taiwan with eyes on the Chinese mainland and also with a global perspective," and "Asia-Pacific Regional Operation Center" gave people reason to be proud of Taiwan's accomplishments and optimistic about its future possibilities and place in the world. A new sense of identity and destiny was in the making.

A Grand Reformer

Under the leadership first of Chiang Ching-kuo and then Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan accomplished a rare feat matched by few other countries: the peaceful transformation of a Leninist party-state system into a democracy.⁵ The transformation of this regime was further complicated by the fact that the national identity and indeed the legitimacy of the Nationalist regime were built on the particular political, ideological, and cultural structure first created by Sun Yat-sen. Any attempt to reform Taiwan's quasi-Leninist system would unavoidably threaten to delegitimate it, resulting in its demise rather than its transformation. When Lee became president following Chiang's death in 1988, the government in Taipei still claimed to represent the whole of China. The political structure and institutions were framed before the Nationalist government's retreat to Taiwan in 1949. But by the time he left the presidency, a substantially revised constitution along with a whole new set of political structures and institutions had been installed.

The Constitution of the Republic of China was originally enacted in 1946, three years before the Nationalist government's defeat by the communists. In order to maintain legitimacy and continue the mandate endowed on him as president of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek froze the constitution on the eve of his defeat on the mainland. In 1948, the Nationalist government appended to this constitution the "Temporary Provisions Effective during the Period of Communist Rebellion," and these provisions became the basis for the martial law that existed on Taiwan for nearly forty years. Consequently, members of the parliament, including the Legislative Yuan, the National Assembly, and the Control Yuan, were not subject to reelection until new nationwide elections (including all of the mainland) could be held, a condition almost impossible to fulfill considering the odds of recovering the mainland. Although sporadic elections were held to replenish the old institutions and to increase marginally the share of Taiwanese representation in them, the newly elected members were not significant enough to redefine the nature of the three chambers. Most members of these three bodies were essentially "representatives" without constituencies. Lee's first step after his inauguration was to rejuvenate the ten-thousand-year-old parliament (wannian guohui). In doing so, he risked betraying the revolutionary cause that his predecessors had inherited from Dr. Sun Yat-sen and alienating the regime's most loyal supporters. In the early 1990s, more than forty years after most incumbents had been elected, new elections were held for the entire memberships of the National Assembly and Legislative Yuan. This dramatic step was hailed as a show of Lee's determination to reform fundamentally Taiwan's political institutions and make their leaders accountable to the people of Taiwan.

With new popularly elected parliamentary bodies in place, Lee proceeded to amend the old constitution, stripping the power of selecting the ROC president away from the National Assembly and giving it directly to the people. With the once powerful National Assembly sidelined, the five-branch government, the gist of the old constitutional order based on Sun Yat-sen's official ideology, sanmin zhuyi (the 'Three Principles of the People") was shattered. As Lee set about changing the constitution to allow direct popular elections for president, the much debated constitutional issue—whether Taiwan's political structure is a parliamentary system or a presidential system—had finally been resolved in favor of the latter.⁶

After becoming the first popularly elected president in March 1996, Lee was poised to streamline the provincial government. This was another political taboo because this level of government was important to the ROC's claim to be the legitimate government of all of China, not just of Taiwan and the offshore islands of Quemoy (Jinmen), Matsu, and Penghu. However, Lee and other advocates of reform argued that the provincial government was redundant and wasteful, in that it and the national government had jurisdiction over essentially the same territory (the offshore islands are technically part of Fujian Province). At the same time, the elimination of the provincial government had been an important part of the opposition DPP's strategy of asserting Taiwan's independence.

The freezing of the provincial government and the elimination of most of its functions also created a schism within the KMT. One of Lee's motives in this reform was to clip the wings of the incumbent governor, James Soong. Soong had been a young protégé of Chiang Ching-kuo and was instrumental in Lee's original appointment as president over the objections of older mainlanders in the KMT. Over the years, Soong proved himself to be a capable administrator and loyal supporter of Lee. Soong was elected governor of Taiwan in 1994 and developed a strong base of popular support. According to many reports, Lee became jealous of Soong's popularity and growing stature as a political leader, worried that if Soong became the next president he would not be beholden to Lee and might not uphold his policies. This may have been an important calculation in Lee's decision to downsize the provincial government and turn the post of governor from an elected position to an appointed one with little authority. This step not only reduced redundancy and unnecessary expenditures, it also eliminated the post of the man Lee saw as a potential rival. Despite their previous rapport, Lee did not share his plans to reform the provincial government with Soong in advance. Relations between the two men were irreparably damaged. This personal conflict between the two former political allies eventually cost the KMT the presidency in 2000 when Soong chose to run as an independent candidate after being denied the KMT's nomination, as will be explained below.

The reforms that Lee implemented were not limited to structures alone. He intended to create a new culture, too. Liberalization was also a big part of Lee's reform strategy. As part of the Taiwanization process, his reforms unshackled the newspapers and cable television networks from government control and scrutiny. Taiwan's media, in turn, played key supporting roles in the reform process. Phrases like democratization, "down with the 'old crooks,'" and "KMT conservatives resisting Taiwanization" became common in the media and captivated the general public. Lee was able to rely on that popular support to consolidate his power base and uproot the old structures and customs that impeded his reformist goals.

When Lee urged the people of the ROC to "challenge the impossible," his critics took that as evidence of his suppressed desire for Taiwan's independence. In retrospect, the boastful statement might have been meant as a reflection of his bold and ambitious grasp for change. He had broken all political taboos and was uninhibited by past conventions in his drive toward reforming the old system. In that regard, he displayed the traits of a true revolutionary.

A Strong Nationalist

As a nationalist who relished the rigor and vitality that Taiwan embodied, Lee was not content with the pariah status that Taiwan had been awarded by the international community. It was a very important part of his grand strategy that Taiwan break out of its diplomatic isolation and participate more actively in the international community. Lee was well aware that the people of Taiwan desperately needed a diplomatic breakthrough to nurse the wounds inflicted by repeated setbacks in the diplomatic field and to rectify the humiliation felt by this island nation. As the chapter by Chien-min Chao shows, over many years Taiwan steadily lost diplomatic partners and was recognized by none of the major countries in the world, despite its economic and political progress. Lee set about maintaining Taiwan's official diplomatic ties, but also recogniz...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Lee Teng-hui's Political Leadership
• Part III: Taiwan's Party System and Electoral Behavior
• Part IV: Lee Teng-hui's Impact on Taiwan's External Relations
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index