Shakespeare's The Tempest begins with a party of fractious, scheming nobles shipwrecked upon an enchanted isle, a place about which they know nothing and for which they care little. Though bound at first by gratitude for the miracle of having escaped the storm with their lives intact, they descend rapidly into politicking and conspiracy, the habits of the Machiavellian realm they carry about with them. Nevertheless, by the end of the play conflicts have been resolved, rifts healed, historical scores settled and peace made, all having been meticulously stage-managed by the island's resident sorcerer, Prospero.
As the rightful Duke of Milan, Prospero hails from the same world of intrigue and realpolitik as the new arrivals. But for "12 year since," as he explains to his daughter Miranda, he has ruled this strange, spirit-filled island, refining his mastery of the magic arts for just such a day as this, the day that his plans are realized and justice prevails.
For 12 years Lee Teng-hui
Along the way he has nurtured the political opposition and indigenized Taiwan's ruling establishment, surviving all-out assaults from the vested interests of the emigre regime and brushing off a succession of challenges from their champions, men such as Hau Pei-tsun
Meanwhile, Lee has supervised a long-overdue revamping of the Constitution, dismantling the paralyzing fiction of the island's claim to sovereignty over China and erecting in its place a Taiwan-oriented framework that, while still evolving, is fully in keeping with the democratic norms of the age.
And as if that weren't enough, the country's economy has continued to hum along nicely, expanding at a rate that the rest of the developed world can only dream of.
Like Prospero in The Tempest, Lee appears to have played his role with supernatural skill. And like Prospero, his actions -- and perhaps his motives -- are open to a variety of interpretations. Critics and enemies have questioned his probity, his loyalties, his intelligence and his supposed political acumen. Even his allies note that he has a tendency to be stubborn and headstrong.
Yet now, with the KMT humbled and in disarray, with the political monopoly of the mainlander establishment at an end, and with Lee's adoptive heir Chen Shui-bian
How can this be? To understand the complicated nature of the role that Lee has played, it is worth looking at his personal background as well as at the achievements and failures that have marked his years in office.
New Taiwanese
In many ways Lee embodies the contradictory, pluralist identity of the people of this island, standing as a prime example of the "New Taiwanese" ideal that he has striven to promote to his compatriots. In his own words he grew up Japanese, just like all educated Taiwanese during the colonial era, and Japanese is said to be his preferred language to this day.
He is of course Taiwanese as opposed to mainlander, but is actually Hakka by birth -- though he doesn't emphasize the fact. Evidence is repeatedly brought forward to show that he was a card-carrying member of the communist underground for several months during the late 1940s, and though Lee denies the charge, it's far from implausible given the political climate of those times. He is Presbyterian by faith, with a strongly Christian sense of fair play and propriety, and like so many members of Taiwan's political elite he earned his doctoral degree in the US. When he became president upon the death of Chiang Ching-kuo
This cross-hatching of ethnic, cultural and political threads in Lee's life explains in part how he has been able to bridge the still bitter schism between "Taiwanese" and "mainlanders" that at times threatens to tear the fabric of Taiwan's society.
Perhaps inspired by the relatively enlightened, liberalizing course that Chiang had charted in his later years, if not by an inherent sense of what was right and good for the people of Taiwan, Lee embarked on a drastic program of reforms that kept the party half a step ahead of the demands of an increasingly politically active public. This meant first neutralizing the resistance of a powerful old guard within the party, the "non-mainstream" faction, which was then partially driven into the cul-de-sac of the New Party.
It meant repealing the Temporary Provisions under which constitutional rights were frozen pending a resolution of the Civil War, and abolishing the Garrison Command, hated symbol of censorship and repression. It meant admitting government culpability for the brutal crackdown of 1947 -- the "228 Incident" -- and publicly honoring the memory of the thousands who suffered and died.
It meant stripping the geriatric mainland-elected deputies in the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly of their mandate, and opening up both these bodies to full democratic election. It meant consolidating the rights of the newly liberalized media, and it meant introducing direct presidential elections.
It also meant de-politicizing the military, securing the loyalty of the top brass to the emerging civil state rather than the to the KMT alone. While this has, to all appearances, been accomplished, it remains a sensitive issue, as can be judged from the widespread approval that greeted Chen Shui-bian's appointment of Tang Fei
Trade-off for reform
As is often pointed out, almost all the reforms implemented by the KMT under Lee's leadership were originally proposed by the DPP. By co-opting opposition demands, both Lee and his party reaped electoral rewards. Lee's popularity was such that he was reelected in 1996 -- during the country's first direct presidential election -- with a landslide majority over his opponents, while the KMT, despite occasional setbacks, continued to dominate the legislature throughout the 1990s.
To maintain his 12-year balancing act atop this sprawling, faction-riven political organism, with its ingrained culture of corruption and cronyism, Lee had to make a crucial trade-off -- further empowering local vested interests that were hungry for political "face," in order to undermine conservative resistance to the reforms.
One result of this was that representative organs from township level to the national legislature became infested with criminals. who also happened to be members of the KMT. While not exactly a new phenomenon in Taiwan, the hijacking of political influence by underworld organizations ("black gold" politics) and the elevation of notorious gangsters to elected office from which they could claim legal immunity was increasingly viewed by voters as an embarrassment and a disgrace, and became one of the key factors in the collapse of the party's vote during the recent presidential election.
So, while successfully reforming the country, Lee dismally failed to reform the KMT. Maybe the party was unreformable, or maybe Lee just didn't care to take on the task. Either way, the party is now in such a perilous state -- in spite of its majority in the legislature and its continued grip on enormous financial resources -- that ex-chairman Lee was able to seriously propose recently that the KMT change its name -- or in other words, quietly euthanize itself.
Perhaps the final insult from a man whom many suspect has despised the party all along?
Apart from the "black gold" tag, the major question mark hanging over Lee's 12-year tenure as president, the one that will most determine his political legacy, concerns his stewardship of the cross-strait relationship. As an unashamed Taiwanese patriot, Lee piloted the KMT administration through a series of moves (such as formally ending the state of war with China, encouraging economic and cultural rapprochement, and holding quasi-official negotiations -- the Koo-Wang talks) that everyone agreed were necessary, pragmatic, and proper ways for Taiwan to begin extricating itself from its life-threatening embrace with the PRC.
In return, China lapped up the economic benefits brought by millions of Taiwan visitors and billions of dollars of Taiwan investment, while continually reminding Lee that his efforts to raise Taiwan's profile had earned him the undying contempt of 1.3 billion Chinese.
Cross-strait controversy
Most controversial of all was the high profile visit that Lee paid to Cornell University in the US, in 1995, along with his modest assertion last August of "state-to-state" parity as the basis for cross-strait negotiations. The former event indirectly brought hundreds of foreign correspondents to Taiwan to cover the missile tests in March 1996 -- enabling them to see and report on the watershed presidential election of that year -- while the latter, which triggered a predictably splenetic outburst from Beijing, did the same thing for this year's democracy-fest.
In both cases, Taiwan's international profile was massively boosted and the global community was reminded that it cannot afford to forget about Taiwan (in the way that it forgot for so long about, say, East Timor), while the US was pressured by circumstances into reasserting its sometimes reluctant commitment to Taiwan's security.
Since China wants to bully the world into assuming that Taiwan is a lost cause and is busily browbeating the US into letting slip its security commitment, Lee's trip to Cornell and his state-to-state pronouncement were essentially ways of thwarting China's projected endgame. Both moves served to internationalize the issue and enhance Taiwan's prospects of outlasting the PRC, without causing undue "provocation" or in any way altering the balance of power that, for the time being, deters China from attempting to annex Taiwan. (It would launch a blockade tomorrow if not for the fact that at the moment any such action would carry a prohibitively high cost -- with or without US intervention.)
As a native Taiwanese, Lee is fully aware that for the overwhelming majority of his compatriots, eventual reunification with the mainland can be discussed but Taiwan's de facto independence is non-negotiable. Lee's successor, Chen Shui-bian, knows the same, and has cause to be glad of the breathing space that Lee's "two-states" formula has bought for him as he settles into the presidential office.
From dictatorship to democracy
At the end of The Tempest a weary Prospero -- the magician-turned-mortal, his powers all exhausted -- contemplates the fruit of his labors and delivers a parting plea for the audience's kind judgement: "Now my charms are all o'erthrown/ And what strength I have's my own/ Which is most faint .../ As you from crimes would pardoned be/ Let your indulgence set me free."
President Lee is entitled to our "indulgence" as he bows out, battleworn but still at the top of his game. He inherited dictatorial authority over a one-party state in 1988 and 12 years later leaves a thriving, vibrant democracy in the hands of the people. Yet the question remains: Was it all by design, or was Lee just lucky that things worked out? How close did Soong come to winning the election and spoiling Lee's grand finale (the peaceful transition of power to the authentic opposition), leaving the KMT in ruins and Lee's own legacy under a cloud? We'll never know.
Perhaps it would be better to say that it was the island, this enchanted island that cast its spell over the political establishment during the past 12 years of breathtaking liberalization, just as it cast its spell on the Portuguese sea-captain who first jotted the words Ilha Formosa ("beautiful island") in his logbook nearly 500 years ago, and subsequently cast its spell on generations of immigrants and sojourners up to the present day, including that tide of humanity that swept across to the island with Chiang Kai-shek
Lee Teng-hui has every reason to be proud of his native soil, the magical island of Taiwan, and proud of its 22 million inhabitants -- his "New Taiwanese" compatriots. For their part, they have every reason to be proud of Lee Teng-hui too, and proud of what they have achieved together during the past 12 years.
Christopher MacDonald is a freelance writer based in Taipei.
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