Editorial: Lee still bears Taiwan's flag

In his new book Asia's Strategy (亞洲的智略), set to be released this week in Japan, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) says Taiwan has been reborn as a "new republic" or a "Second Republic," and that Taiwan's identity has entered the phase of the "Taiwan Republic of China."

Lee's new way of putting it has generated a wide range of reactions in Taiwan. The response from Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) new administration has been low-key. But obviously, citizen Lee has said on the administration's behalf what it will not yet dare to say out loud until it finds a firm footing.

In July 1996, soon after Lee became Taiwan's first popularly elected president, professor Masahiro Wakabayashi (若林正丈), a Taiwan expert at the University of Tokyo, said in a paper that the "national polity" of the Republic of China had changed.

He argued that the "First Republic of China" (中華民國第一共和) established in 1911 had come to an end -- after Lee's election had "Taiwanized" the ROC and ushered in a new "Second Republic."

Wakabayashi also said the significance of democratization for Taiwan lies in the strengthening of an "internal legitimacy" that a civil state should have, and in defining Taiwan's political identity somewhere between "part of a split nation" and "a political entity with the substantial content of a civil state."

Anyone who has read Wakabayashi can easily understand Lee's new nomenclature "Taiwan Republic of China," as well as his motive in borrowing from Wakabayashi's idea of the "Second Republic."

Lee's goal is to first solidify Taiwan's internal legitimacy. Simply put, to shape -- through an awareness of the "Second Republic of China" -- a consensus among the Taiwanese people on their political identity.

Only upon the foundation of public consensus can we declare to the world that Taiwan is a sovereign state. The Taiwanese must define their legal status for themselves before letting other countries define what it is. In other words, only through a solid internal legitimacy can we achieve external legitimacy.

Taiwan is a major issue that looms large in East Asian security, Political changes in Taiwan also have a direct impact on China's political development. Establishing external legitimacy is an important prerequisite in ensuring Taiwan's national security.

Lee's statement last year on "special state-to-state relations" was aimed at Beijing and other foreign countries. Now he is setting his eyes on the "Second Republic" theory to build internal consensus. Lee believes that this is a necessary step for Taiwan's future, and that President Chen should continue to promote this work.

Notwithstanding how long it will take to form an internal consensus, the fact that Lee -- with a love and a sense of mission for this land of Taiwan -- has said what others dare not is something that deserve applause from all Taiwanese.

The accusations from the New Party and pro-unification scholars have been that the "Second Republic" idea rubs salt into an old, sensitive wound, and that it is a "two states" theory pure and simple. We cannot see any rational or practical basis in their accusations. Instead, such comments only reveal their usual anti-Lee Teng-hui attitude.