Champion of Taiwan's reforms: Stephen Solarz

"How do you wear a decorative honor? I read the instructions and I still haven't figured it out," said former US congressman Stephen Solarz, opening the box containing the sash and decoration given by President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to the man formerly denounced by the KMT for encouraging democratization in Taiwan.

So how do the KMT leaders feel about the foreign policy expert who may be responsible for putting them out of a job next month?

"A number of party leaders have said to me that whatever they may have felt about me in the 1970s and 1980s, in retrospect, they appreciate the role I played in encouraging the government here to respect the human rights of its own people and to move in the direction of democracy," Solarz says.

However, "It remains to be seen whether the relatively charitable view in retrospect of my efforts will remain if the KMT loses the election," he joked.

An enemy to former authoritarian governments and a friend of opposition parties in Asia, the respected Democrat from New York has been a prime mover behind US legislation condemning the suppression of political dissent under totalitarian regimes everywhere.

He was a staunch supporter of Taiwan's tang wai ("outside the party," 黨外) movement and rallied behind the Kaohsiung Eight -- including current DPP vice president candidate Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and the party's chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) -- who were charged with sedition for inciting an anti-government rally.

Shortly after a Taiwanese-American professor, Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成) aligned with the tang wai movement and was allegedly beaten to death by security agents during a trip to Taiwan in 1981, Solarz drafted an amendment to the Arms Export Control Act that prohibits arms sales to countries that engage in a "consistent pattern of intimidation and harassment" against the people of the US.

In a September 1985 article in the Los Angeles Times, Solarz condemned the government-directed 1984 Daly City, California assassination of Henry Liu (劉宜良, who went by the pen name Chiang Nan, 江南).

Liu was a journalist critical of the KMT regime and Solarz said this was a "frightening example of the long arm of Taiwan martial law tearing at the fabric of American democracy."

"The KMT needs to be reminded that the state of California is not a province of Taiwan," he added.

DPP lawmaker Parris Chang (張旭成), a long-time friend of Solarz, said the former congressman from Brooklyn was a key supporter of the party when Taiwan was under martial law.

"He knew a lot of people in Washington and made connections for us," Chang says.

"Also, we shared the same kind of values -- such as respect for democracy and human rights," he said, adding Solarz was lobbying on Taiwan's behalf for the passage of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act (TSEA) in the Senate.

Having served nine terms in the US House of Representatives, Solarz was the chairman of the Asian and Pacific Affairs and African Affairs subcommittees, but his interest in foreign affairs ranged far beyond these regions, to the Middle East and Central America.

Two key players in Washing-ton's Taiwan policy -- Stanley Roth, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Richard Bush, Director and Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) -- were Solarz's former staffers.

It is said by both his friends and foes that he is "more international than national" -- one of the factors that cost him his re-election in 1992.