Taiwan Today

It is never easy to assess the achievements of a controversial leader, and the task is particularly challenging when the individual remains not only alive but also politically active. Fortunately, Richard Kagan's effort on behalf of former President Lee Teng-hui rises to the task. Originally turned down by Lee when he asked permission to write the book, Kagan found intermediaries who persuaded Lee to change his mind. Once having done so, Lee proved more than cooperative: the author was able to spend more than 18 hours interviewing Lee one-on-one. Kagan has consulted a variety of primary and secondary sources as well, including recently declassified cables from the US Department of State. The author, professor emeritus at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, also draws on his extensive experience from living and visiting Taiwan from 1965 until the present, save for a decade from 1981 to the early 1990s during which he was banned from entering the country.

The result is a sympathetic portrait of Lee that contrasts sharply with the much more critical assessment that emerges from Bruce Dickson and Chao Chien-min's 2002 effort, Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy in Taiwan's Politics and somewhat from the more nuanced and scholarly Lee Teng-hui and Taiwan's Quest for Identity by Shih-shan Henry Tsai published in 2005.

Spirituality, Social Action

Kagan describes his book as the first to go beyond strict and traditional political analyses of Lee's democratic reforms in order to focus on the development of Lee's character and political philosophy. The author finds the basic elements of these as shaped by Zen Buddhism and, some years later, Christianity. From Zen, Lee learned to view reality in fluid terms: there are no absolutes, no limits to one's spontaneity, no boundaries to creativity and no hurry about completing a task. The world is constantly in productive chaos. This outlook on life, Kagan opines, allowed Lee to maintain some distance from the political and public spheres; to backtrack or take a different course when he encountered obstacles; and to patiently wait for new opportunities when blocked from making progress toward his goals.

Discovering Christianity later in life, Lee was baptized in 1961 at the age of 38. Kagan hypothesizes that Christianity gave him an absolute that Zen lacked. The type of Christianity that Lee absorbed derived from 19th and early 20th century Protestant movements that emphasized social action. In the words of one American pastor that seemed to foreshadow Lee's career as an agricultural economist, "Some people look up at the sky to see God. I look at the earth and see the crops growing." In other words, the way to God is not through gazing at the heavens, but by nurturing the earth and one's fellow human beings. Lee's Ph.D. dissertation at Cornell University in New York, dealing with intersectoral capital flows and economic development, won him international recognition. Its argument that a strong agricultural base would augment, rather than compete with, rapid industrialization would later be borne out by actual developments in Taiwan. As a result, Kagan points out, Taiwan has been able to maintain a healthy balance between urban and rural segments, and between the wealthy and the poor. Although the author does not mention it, this is very different from the situation on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, with its increasingly defiant farmers and ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.

After a brief overview of Taiwan's history--a minor quibble: it was Koxinga's grandson, Zheng Keshuang, rather than his son who surrendered the island to the Qing--Kagan's narrative moves into Lee Teng-hui's early life. Born in Sanjhih in 1923, during the assimilative period of Japanese colonization, Lee received the Japanese name of Iwasato Masao. Lee's Hakka family spoke Holo at home, though he was educated in Japanese.

Educational Influences

An excellent student, he was supported in his studies by his parents, who sometimes even borrowed money to buy their son the books he coveted. Consonant with the aim of training outstanding Taiwanese youngsters to create an elite loyal to Japan that would help govern the island, Lee was sent to Japan for higher education. There he came into contact with an eclectic mix of intellectual influences that led to the cosmopolitan outlook that would form his world view. Zen philosophers, German thinkers such as Goethe and Nietzsche and transcendentalists like Carlyle were favorite topics. Lee also developed a fondness for Western classical music. Though this broad curriculum may be at variance with outsiders' notions of a pre-World War II system narrowly focused on inculcating Japanese values and unquestioning obedience to the emperor, Lee's education replicates exactly the experience of the other towering figure of Taiwanese identity, Peng Ming-min. Peng in fact credits his reading, while in Japan, of the French philosopher Ernst Renan with shaping his notions of a Taiwanese nation based not on race, language, or culture but on a sense of community and shared destiny. Half a century later, Lee and Peng would be rival candidates for the presidency of Taiwan.

After the war, Lee returned to Taiwan in time for the infamous 228 Incident on February 28, 1947, in which festering anger at the corruption and venality of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) government led to a repressive massacre that aimed at the destruction of the local Taiwanese elite. Many of Lee's friends were jailed, executed or simply disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. Since Lee's father had been a member of the Japanese police force and Lee himself had, like many other native-born Taiwanese, served in the Japanese military, the family was suspect. Though keeping a low profile was indicated, Lee joined a Taiwanese Marxist study group that met to discuss the island's political and economic future. Although he describes himself as in the group for a short time only, rival political forces would later charge Lee with possessing communist sympathies. Of more immediate concern at the time was the fact that the KMT's secret police discovered his membership, interrogating Lee but later releasing him.

Kagan recounts that Lee never discussed the effect of the KMT's repression during their extensive conversations. Nonetheless, Kagan was left with the impression that what is known as the "White Terror," in which more than 100,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for perceived opposition to the KMT, caused Lee to turn inward and accounts for the several years in which he rejected any political participation. More striking was Lee's reaction to a December 1952 KMT edict that banned the use of the Japanese language in Taiwan's government, schools and printed media. While he studied Mandarin diligently, Lee never felt comfortable in it, describing the coerced reeducation as "an experience of great mental misery." Kagan opines that it caused Lee to feel alienated from his previous identity as a cosmopolitan intellectual.

Twist of Fate

Since Lee worked for the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, a collaborative US-Republic of China (ROC) effort to rationalize the island's agricultural structure, he was eligible for a scholarship to study in the United States. Ever the dedicated student, he received a stipend that enabled him to study agricultural economics in Iowa and, later, Kentucky. A decade later, he would return to the United States to study for a doctorate in the subject at Cornell University, which had long been at the forefront of that field. Lee credits his stay there with teaching him about American local democracy as well as what would become a life-long passion: playing golf. Rejecting advice from friends against returning to Taiwan, Lee returned home after receiving his degree in 1968 and immediately became the object of police scrutiny.

Again interrogated, he was told by a guard that only Chiang Ching-kuo, the son and heir-apparent of Chiang Kai-shek, could save him. Although later released from custody, Lee nonetheless faced bleak prospects and prepared to go back to Cornell. In an unexpected twist of fate, two Taiwanese attempted to assassinate Chiang Ching-kuo during his trip to the United States in April 1970. It was discovered that one of them had known Lee at Cornell. After an investigation showed no connection, the guard's words proved prophetic: Chiang Ching-kuo ordered that all charges against Lee be dropped. He was appointed minister without portfolio in the Cabinet, with special responsibility for agricultural affairs. From there, Lee's rise was steady: over the next three decades he became mayor of the capital city, Taipei, governor of Taiwan province, vice-president to Chiang Ching-kuo and, after Ching-kuo's death, president in his own right.

Coming in From the Cold

The transformation from alienated, if low-key, dissident to KMT insider is puzzling, particularly given the highly principled person Kagan describes. The author notes that Lee's son, in a fond memoir penned before the young man's life was cut short by cancer, writes that his father warned him about Dr. Faust, the legendary figure popularized by Goethe, who makes a pact with the devil. Did Lee, then, take the very action he had warned his son against? Kagan notes that, when the opportunity to collaborate came, Lee was in his mid-40s with a wife and three children. He could not risk being arrested or driven into exile for openly opposing KMT policies. Taking a position in the Cabinet when it was offered allowed Lee to protect his wife and family. Lee himself has clearly thought about the analogy, noting that in Goethe's version of the Faust legend, the doctor is saved at the end and guided into heaven. In his book Love and Faith, Lee has written that God's love will save those who have lived a life of earnest striving, no matter how sinful they have been.

Strive he did, overseeing the construction of the dams, irrigation projects, roads and bridges that were integral parts of Taiwan's economic miracle. Kagan traces Lee's development of a commitment to create an independent, sovereign and democratic Taiwan to his term as governor. When Chiang Ching-kuo, elderly and in failing health, chose Lee to be his vice-presidential running mate in 1984, fulfilling this commitment began to seem within reach.

Steady Rise to Power

Kagan, with his well honed sense of metaphor, compares Chiang Ching-kuo's political attitudes during his declining years to walking on stilts. One was his desire to liberalize; the other was the desirability of continued reliance on the conservative "mainlanders," who dominated the military and secret police. Since Lee did not appeal to the latter group for obvious reasons, otherwise astute analysts of Taiwan politics did not expect him to be able to wield actual power when Chiang Ching-kuo passed away in January 1988. He would be, they predicted, a figurehead, dominated by conservative mainlander interests. As with many other aspects of Taiwan's development, history proved them completely wrong. Lee blunted military opposition to his authority by appointing prominent hardliner general Hau Pei-tsun as premier. At the same time, he named several Taiwanese or pro-democratization mainland-born individuals to Cabinet positions. Chiang Kai-shek's widow, Soong Mei-ling, was persuaded to leave Taiwan after committing her objections to Lee's presidency to paper. She never returned. When he had consolidated power, Lee replaced Hau with a more compliant individual.

Lee also astutely handled a major pro-reform demonstration by students, actually going to speak with them in person and promising to call a national conference to discuss the implementation of their demands. The contrast between his behavior and the Beijing government's response to demonstrations in China less than a year before impressed even those who had been skeptical of Lee's abilities. The conference was duly held, paving the way for a more rapid democratization process and putting the stamp of popular approval on goals that Lee had long hoped to effect. Kagan sees symbolic importance in Lee's decision to hold the conference's concluding banquet at a site on Yuanshan, north of Taipei, that had been, under the Japanese, the location of a Shinto shrine sacred to the emperor and, under the KMT, became home to the Chinese-style Grand Hotel built by Chiang Kai-shek's wife. The inauguration of democracy there indicated that the rule of both had been supplanted.

Strategy and Principles

As biographers, especially those of sympathetic individuals, are wont to do, Kagan admires his subject and staunchly defends Lee against all criticism. As with most leaders who have championed sweeping change in their societies, Lee has his detractors. The book generally gives these short shrift, and the motives advanced for certain controversial actions may also be less idealistic than described. For example, Lee was roundly criticized for pre-determining the outcome of the National Affairs Conference by excluding representatives from the opposition non-mainstream faction. Supporters would, of course, argue that the end goal of democratization justified Lee's exclusionist means. That Beijing became so angry at Lee's trip to Cornell was not so much due to his speech celebrating democratic ideals as to the fact that Lee had succeeded in breaking out of the diplomatic isolation the Chinese government had attempted to impose on him--pressuring several nations to curtail the "golf diplomacy" wherein Lee used his lifelong love of the sport as a venue for political discussions with other world leaders on the relative privacy of the links, and even obtaining US Secretary of State Warren Christopher's personal assurances that Lee would never obtain a visa. In acceding to the PRC's blandishments, Christopher unwisely overlooked the fact that the US Congress controls the State Department's budget, and the Taiwan government was able to use its leverage in Congress to force a decision in Lee's favor.

Another matter that is barely touched on is how Lee came to receive his invitation to Cornell in the first place. While Lee, as the first democratically elected president of an economically successful nation, unquestionably deserved his award of Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, a good deal of preparatory work preceded the decision. Friends of Lee raised substantial amounts of money to fund an endowed chair in his name, with the gift doubtless accompanied by a gentle hint that some recognition of their generosity would be appreciated.

In perhaps inadvertently giving the impression that Lee's accomplishments flowed almost effortlessly from his Zen and Christian principles, the book may not sufficiently impress the reader with his often brilliant ability to outmaneuver his opposition.

Splitting the Vote

Another matter of considerable importance that is simply omitted is Lee's break with James Soong, who had loyally supported Lee after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo. How and why this occurred has been intensely debated, since it was to have a profound effect on the political future of the country. After declaring that he would not run again, Lee threw his support to a candidate far less popular than Soong. Understandably angry, Soong ran on his own, splitting the KMT vote and allowing the opposition to come to power for the first time in the history of the country.

That said, this is a book well worth reading. Kagan's knowledge of the events, engaging writing style, familiarity with the artistic and literary milieu of Taiwan and eye for symbolism enliven the text, as do the photographs, many of them taken by the author himself. Taiwan's Statesman is recommended to all who would better understand Lee and the events that have occurred in his lifetime.
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June Teufel Dreyer is professor of political science at the University of Miami and author of China's Political System: Modernization and Tradition.

Copyright © 2008 by June Teufel Dreyer