Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was discharged from the Kurashiki Central Hospital in western Japan yesterday afternoon after an operation on Tuesday to address a heart ailment.
Lee is expected to return to Taiwan today, if there are no problems with his recovery.
Around 2pm yesterday, Lee and his wife, Tseng Wen-hui (
"How do you feel?" asked a Japanese journalist in Japanese. "Very good," said Lee in Japanese despite looking to be in less than perfect health.
"Do you feel better now?" asked a reporter in Hokkien. "I feel better. Thanks," the 78-year-old replied, also in Hokkien.
Lee's heart surgeon, Kazuaki Mitsudo, also accompanied Lee to the Imperial Hotel in Osaka, where Lee has stayed during his five-day trip to Japan that began on Sunday. Mitsudo is to continue observing Lee's condition until he departs for Taiwan around noon today, sources said. As of 9pm yesterday, Lee's plan to return to Taiwan today remains unchanged, one of Lee's close aides said.
Lee was originally scheduled to leave the hospital at 9am yesterday, but local police said they needed more time to coordinate forces to safeguard his departure from the city with a population of 420,000.
Lee's wife visited the renowned Ohara Museum of Art yesterday morning, but shortened her tour of Japan's first museum of Western art because she was worried about her sick husband, according to vice director of the museum Hara Michihiko.
Peng Run-tzu (
"This time everybody witnessed his situation. Some had claimed he was not sick at all. But his [health] situation would be unthinkable without this checkup and treatment in Japan," Peng said.
On Tuesday, Lee received a post-operative checkup -- for surgery he had last November -- and underwent a one-hour operation to correct further narrowing of his arteries. In the operation he underwent in November in Taiwan, five stents were inserted to dilate his narrowed arteries. On Tuesday, the doctor inserted a sixth stent to combat a newly-found narrowed blood vessel and also corrected the narrowing of a blood vessel near one of the five stents.
A follow-up examination six months from now will be compulsory, but it will not be necessary for Lee to return to Japan for the checkup, Mitsudo said.
Peng said Lee's chances of returning to Japan for the checkup may be made easier next year because Japan's new prime minister is the reform-minded Junichiro Koizumi.
"Koizumi was in favor of his visit to start with. His regime will be easier to communicate with," Peng said.
Peng represented Lee during negotiations with the Japanese side regarding Lee's visit. But China's vehement opposition to the visit and the China phobia among some Japanese technocrats made his job rather tricky.
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