Time for change, Lee says

Former Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said Taiwan should seize the moment and get behind President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) bid for a second term.

Speaking a second day at his own political think tank, the Lee Teng-hui School, Lee told students that the next four years would be crucial in the campaign to change the nation's name to Taiwan. Only President Chen was capable of realizing this change, Lee said.

"This is a delicate moment and Taiwanese people must wake up and seize this moment in order to secure the continuation of local power led by Chen," Lee said.

Lee said his appointment as president in 1988 when Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) -- son of Taiwan's longtime dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) -- died in office, was "accidental," and not an "absolute" result plotted by Chiang Ching-kuo to choose a Taiwanese national leader. Some supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) believe that Chiang Ching-kuo intentionally put Taiwan on its path to democratization by appointing Taiwanese-born Lee as his political successor.

"Some people think that I was made president on purpose, but as a matter of fact, it was just accidental," Lee said yesterday.

"He [Chiang] didn't think he was going to die so soon, so I was just an interim vice-president. He didn't mean to appoint me as his successor. He never thought that way," Lee said.

Lee the campaign to change the nation's name to Taiwan was equivalent to a naturally occurring event that took place when circumstances were favorable. The former president added that circumstances in Taiwan were now favorable for turning the country into a "complete and normal" independent state.

"History is not retrogressive," Lee said. "What happened in the past can't be changed. For 300 years, Taiwan was ruled as a colony by foreign powers -- a destiny we wanted to change but could not. However, we can now determine our own future. This is a fortuitous moment in history and we must make an effort to earn it."

He said Taiwan's recent move to add "Taiwan" to Republic of China (ROC) passports was an encouraging initiative toward the ultimate goal of changing the nation's name from ROC to Taiwan and formally establish a nation called the Republic of Taiwan.

Lee said that the reason he advocated the concept of a Republic of Taiwan was to provide a new vision and evoke the public's passion after being disheartened by President Chen's failed "new middle ground" policy that had intended to tone down the Democratic Progressive Party's push for independence.

Meanwhile, in an interview published by the Washington Post yesterday, the former president said that China wouldn't dare launch a military attack at Taiwan if it declared independence because Beijing was fearful of the US' military muscle. He also suggested that China would be constrained by the fact that it is scheduled to host the Summer Olympics in 2008.

"We really need to see whether the Beijing government has the power to launch this kind of attack," the Post quoted Lee as saying. "It seems to me that China is not in the position to act. It is afraid of the United States. The Beijing government does not dare to challenge US military strength. Now is the time."

Lee the Post that the "Chinese have a strange sense of history, with their obsession with 5,000 years of their culture.

"When you meet an Italian, you don't see him dreaming about the greatness of Rome, do you? How can modern people have such ideas? They think that everything belongs to them, even Japan, not to mention Taiwan," Lee said.