Former President Lee Teng-hui ’s Democratic Legacy Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s first democratically elected president and first native Taiwanese national leader, died on July 30 after being hospitalized since February. He was 97 years old. AmCham Taipei released a statement joining the people of Taiwan in mourning Lee’s passing and noting his historic role in promoting…
Shortly after my arrival in Taipei in the fall of 1969, I received a phone call from a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism classmate who was visiting from Japan. Professors at his undergraduate alma mater, Cornell, had encouraged him to call on an impressive Taiwanese agricultural economist named Lee Teng-hui who had recently earned a…
Former president Lee Teng-hui placed himself once more at the center of controversy with remarks that referred to Japan, former colonial master of Taiwan, as his “motherland” when he was a young man. In an article for a Japanese-language publication, Lee noted that both he and his brother volunteered for the Japanese Imperial army during…
