According to Lee, he appointed Wang as president of the Control Yuan over his aides' objections to Wang's age. When Lee wanted Wang to retire, Wang asked for housing, a car and a government-paid driver. These requests were refused and ever since, Wang has reacted bitterly toward the former president. Lee writes that if Wang's intelligent and sensible wife were still alive, Wang would not behave this way. Of the people protesting Lee's book, Wang is the only one to come out threatening a libel suit.
Lee also deflates Singapore senior statesman Lee Kuan-yew's (李光耀) self-perception as having played a pivotal role in cross-strait relations as exaggerated and describes how Lee Kuan-yew asked for a sizable chunk of profit in a potential cross-strait shipping joint venture formed by Beijing, Taipei and Singapore once Taipei opened up direct links with China.
In an interesting passage about Alice King (金美齡), the pro-independence hard-liners' darling, Lee says he sympathizes with many of her views, but he does not count her as a close friend, nor does he share her antipathy against China. In fact, Lee's stated affinity for Chinese culture has been the most overlooked aspect of the book. He claims reservations about parts of Chinese culture, but adds that he never denied he was Chinese. He also mentions his desire to visit northern China to retrace the footsteps of Confucius. Furthermore, as a college student contemplating a major, he chose agronomy over Western history because he wanted to help solve China's agricultural problems. He has read books by Lu Xun (魯迅), Guo Moruo (郭沫若) and Bo Yang(柏楊), and found much inspiration in them, he says.
If these nods to Chinese culture have softened the Beijing authorities' contempt for Lee they haven't let on. So far, Beijing has been silent on the book.
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