In late 2015, ahead of the January 2016 presidential and legislative elections, then-Tainan mayor William Lai (賴清德) announced that he supported Taiwanese independence.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — who passed away on July 30 — responded by saying that if Taiwan sought independence, China would probably send the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to attack Taiwan.
Lee also emphasized that he had never said Taiwan should seek independence, because it is already independent.
Lee’s puzzling use of Mandarin and leaps of logic led to confusion and made it unclear what he really meant.
However, I can testify that he was disapproving of de jure independence many years ago.
My job relocation back to Taiwan from Los Angeles in 2006 coincided with a visit of Bruce Herschensohn, an old friend who is a professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and the author of Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy.
I once accompanied him on a visit to Lee. Herschensohn is an ardent supporter of the Democratic Progressive Party, so we initially had a great conversation.
However, halfway through the chat, Herschensohn suddenly asked Lee about his Taiwanese independence strategy, which stupefied Lee.
As Herschensohn pressed, Lee ended up giving him the silent treatment and turned to me, talking for five to six minutes in Mandarin about his philosophy of life, which derived from the passage: “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” in the New Testament’s Epistle to the Galatians.
Embarrassed, I had no choice but to listen to his lecture.
As Lee was a former president whom I highly respect, I was unwilling to interrupt him no matter how impolite he was to his other guest. It was really quite embarrassing.
When I discussed the incident with Herschensohn afterward, we had no idea whether Lee had changed his stance on Taiwanese independence or whether everyone had misunderstood him, because his Mandarin was not precise enough.
I agree with Lee that Taiwan is already an independent state and that there is no need to declare independence, for fear that it could lead to a war.
The most important task at hand is to resist China and protect Taiwan, and to uphold the “status quo” of Taiwanese sovereignty.
During his time in office, Lee initially upheld cross-strait peace under the Guidelines for National Unification and the “one China” policy.
However, toward the end of his presidency, Lee strongly opposed the “one China” policy, pushed his “special state-to-state” model of cross-strait relations and approved of Taiwan’s normalization as a nation.
Herschensohn, who served as an assistant to former US president Richard Nixon, was witness to the creation of the Shanghai Communique, which shaped the US’ “one China” policy.
Later in his career, Herschensohn took a strong stance against the policy and even advocated Taiwanese independence.
As the strongest opponent to the so-called “1992 consensus” and the “one China” consensus among Taiwan’s diplomats, I often fought Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government officials and a conservative bureaucracy rife with “one China” sentiment.
When I accompanied Herschensohn on his visit to Lee, who had constantly fought with the KMT, I expected these two “pro-Taiwan” figures to get along like a house on fire, but there was not to be an exchange of views on Taiwanese independence.
History is indeed full of interesting ironies.
The meeting also showed the difficulty of pushing for Taiwanese independence.
My take is that as Lee had been promoting Taiwan’s normalization as a state since leaving office, he was in favor of drafting a new constitution and rectifying the nation’s name, but because he knew that the US is opposed to changing Taiwan’s national title, he thought that a low-profile approach was necessary while waiting for the right moment.
Perhaps that was why Lee was so displeased with having a foreign guest asking him about his Taiwan independence strategy.
Michael Lin is a retired diplomat who served in the US.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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