New Lee Teng-hui book sheds light on frigate purchase

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) has revealed in his newly released book that the decision to purchase six French-built Lafayette-class frigates in 1991 instead of South Korean-made warships was made by the navy.

According to the book, the turning point of the procurement case lay in a telegram sent to Taiwan by then-premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) during a visit to France in May 1989.

"The military decided to purchase Lafayette frigates before reporting to me. The price [of the Lafayettes] was much higher [than South Korean warships] and we had been negotiating with South Korea for a long time. Why did they want to change [the contract]? I did feel then that something was a bit fishy," Lee recalled in the newly published book An Account of Lee Teng-hui in Power (李登輝執政告白實錄).

The book said that when assessing the purchase plan for the second-generation warships, the navy concluded that HDF-2000 warships designed by South Korea's Hyundai would best meet Taiwan's fighting needs. The proposal was formally approved by Lee on May 17, 1988.

But the book said that on May 8, 1989 word came from Hau in France not to buy the Korean-made ships.

Later, the navy recommended the purchase of the French-made ships, to which Hau agreed in a written report on Oct. 5, 1989. He ordered the purchase be handled as a "classified procurement" case. The case -- overshadowed by the murder of naval captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) and allegations of bribe-taking on a breathtaking scale -- was signed and sealed just five months later and only at that point was Lee asked for his approval, the book maintains.

However, former navy commander in chief Yeh Chang-tung (葉昌桐) and retired vice admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明), former head of the fleet control office, have previously said that Lee knew every detail of the Lafayette purchase case, a stark contrast to Lee's statement in the book.