KMT maverick respected widely

The Chiang government suppressed the report, however, and Sun was placed under house arrest for almost 33 years.

But the special team's report outlived martial law, and in 1988, the government published the report and released Sun.

Tao also continued to be critical of the Chiang government in his writings. On Chiang's 70th birthday, Tao published an article in the special birthday edition of the Free China Journal containing specific suggestions for the relaxation of martial law, which angered Chiang. It was one of many dissenting articles that prompted the president to close the journal in 1960.

Following Chiang's death and the succession of his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to the presidency in 1978, Tao was recruited as a presidential advisor after becoming the first Control Yuan member to resign of his own accord, considering himself too old to continue contributing to the nation's highest watchdog body.

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), one of eight political leaders to be imprisoned after the Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件) in 1979, has said that her family told her while she was in prison that Tao had sought an audience with President Chiang to seek a reduction in the sentences of the eight. He was rebuffed but then wrote a series of letters to Chiang, which went unanswered.

He nevertheless remained a presidential advisor whose expertise was valued by Chiang. When Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) became president in 1988, Tao remained in the post, and stayed until Lee left office in 2000.

Influence

Those who knew Tao praised him for the influence he had on the government during the martial law era.

"He was an unprecedented icon for the public under the authoritarian political system," said Huang Huang-shien (黃煌雄), a Control Yuan member.

Hu Fu (胡佛), a professor of constitutional law at National Taiwan University, said: "He played an important role in softening the KMT government's attitudes toward opposition members, who, at that time, had not yet established a formal political party."

Indeed, in 1985 Tao prevailed upon Chiang not to round up and arrest opposition activists but instead allow him to address leading activists to persuade them to reject militancy and adopt moderate approaches to opposing the government.

In September 1986, when the DPP was founded at Taipei's Grand Hotel (圓山飯店), Tao was present despite the government's ban on political parties. The ban was lifted the following year.

"He never feared the authorities and always supported free speech," Hu said.

Tao wrote that a democracy composed of people who could not or would not criticize the government was a "wooden chicken democracy," a term adopted from the old Chinese simile, "as stupid as a wooden chicken."