Lee Teng-hui transformed Taiwan’s postwar political structure, in which a small mainlander minority dominated the Taiwanese majority, not through armed force but through the ballot box.
Taiwan’s 1996 direct presidential election was not only the first in Taiwan but also a historic democratic achievement unmatched elsewhere in the Chinese-speaking world.
His firm response to China following the Qiandao Lake incident offers an important lesson for Japan: when China is clearly at fault, it must be confronted with clarity and resolve.

August 2, 2020
The direct presidential election has been described as Taiwan’s first.
Yet throughout the long history of Chinese-speaking societies, including mainland China and Singapore, it was the first successful example of a democratic election of its kind—one that, even today, has not been achieved elsewhere.
The following is taken from an article by Nobuyuki Yoshida, a former Sankei Shimbun Taipei bureau chief, published in yesterday’s Sankei Shimbun under the title, “Lee Said, ‘Speak Clearly to China’: An Attitude from Which Japan Should Learn.”
I arrived in Taipei as a correspondent in January 1991, shortly after the outbreak of the Gulf War.
Three years had already passed since Lee Teng-hui succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo as president.
At that time, however, Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, was still living in Taiwan and reigned as the symbolic figure of the mainlanders who had come from China.
Hau Pei-tsun, a mainlander with a military background, held the powerful position of president of the Executive Yuan, equivalent to prime minister.
It was an era that appeared less distinctly Taiwanese than unmistakably representative of the “Republic of China.”
Lee Teng-hui’s greatest achievement was to overturn this distorted postwar structure, in which mainlanders constituting little more than 10 percent of the population ruled over the 85 percent who were Taiwanese, using ballot papers rather than ammunition.
The direct presidential election of 1996, in which Lee himself was elected, is commonly described as Taiwan’s first.
Yet throughout the long history of Chinese-speaking societies, including mainland China and Singapore, it was the first successful example of a democratic election of its kind—one that has still not been achieved elsewhere.
His achievement in making the impossible possible within Chinese-speaking societies that had known only authoritarian rule carries profound implications for their future.
I was fortunate to have taken up my post in 1991.
Until then, although he was already president, it was probably still a period of taoguang yanghui for Lee Teng-hui—a time to conceal his strength and quietly build his power.
At almost the same time as my arrival, however, Lee’s great project to transform Taiwan into a genuinely Taiwanese polity began in earnest.
He first removed inconvenient provisions from the Constitution.
Then, after Soong Mei-ling moved to the United States in September of that year, he induced all the permanent mainlander legislators, who had retained their seats and formed a majority for more than forty years, to retire by offering them generous retirement payments.
As a result, the Legislative Yuan election at the end of the following year produced, for the first time, a legislature in which Taiwanese representatives held the majority.
This prevented Hau Pei-tsun from achieving his ambition of being reappointed president of the Executive Yuan and eventually forced him to resign.
When Hau sought the post of Kuomintang vice-chairman, Lee hinted that he might accept the request.
At the party congress in 1993, however, Lee suddenly increased the number of vice-chairmen to four, reducing Hau to merely one among them.
As the only Japanese correspondent then stationed in Taipei, I was able to witness this remarkable political manoeuvring.
Lee Teng-hui may have appeared every inch the scholar, but he could never have been merely an academic.
Before bringing about the 1996 election, he meticulously designed a plan to reduce mainlander power and place genuine political authority in the hands of himself, a Taiwanese.
He then used that power to introduce the direct presidential election.
This was a form of political skill that he had acquired through surviving inside the mainlander-dominated Kuomintang.
It was an ability that few others could have hoped to possess.
There is, however, another example from which Japan can learn.
It concerns the Qiandao Lake incident of March 1994.
A sightseeing boat was set on fire at Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang Province, China, and twenty-four Taiwanese tourists were burned to death.
As the bereaved families and the Taiwanese public became increasingly angered by the Chinese authorities’ disregard for human rights, President Lee issued an even more forceful statement of outrage.
“Mainland China is not a civilised country,” he said.
“It is no different from local bandits.”
Because China openly advocated the use of military force against Taiwan, voices of concern naturally arose even within Taiwan.
Taking advantage of my position as the only Japanese correspondent, I asked Lee directly at the Presidential Office what he truly intended.
I began to suggest that perhaps it would be better not to provoke China too much.
Lee interrupted me.
“No, that is wrong,” he insisted.
“When the other side is at fault, you must speak clearly.
That is what works with the Chinese.”
I returned home only half convinced.
Immediately afterwards, however, China completely reversed its position and fully acknowledged criminal responsibility.
Premier Li Peng then issued a statement expressing sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims.
The outcome unfolded precisely as Lee Teng-hui had anticipated.
This, too, should be regarded as a demonstration of the political skill of a man who, through his long experience with mainlanders, had come to understand the Chinese way of thinking completely.
Postwar Japan has treated the avoidance of provoking China as though it were the highest virtue.
Is this not precisely the lesson from which Japan should learn?