Lee Teng-hui

Lee Teng-hui (Chinese: 李登輝; Taiwanese Romanization: Lí Teng-hui; pinyin: Lǐ Dēnghuī; born January 15, 1923) is a politician in the Republic of China on Taiwan. He was the President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. His tenure was marked with major extensions to the democratic reforms initiated by Chiang Ching-kuo that ceded power to the Taiwanese electorate. He also promoted the Taiwan localization movement and led an aggressive foreign policy to gain diplomatic allies. His critics accused him of black gold politics and being a secret supporter of Taiwan independence who was trying to undermine the party he headed. After leaving office, Lee has confirmed some of these accusations by emerging as a radical Taiwan independence activist, and currently serves as the "spiritual leader" of the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union.

Taiwan localization movement

Lee Teng-hui, during his term as president, supported the Taiwanese localization movement. The Taiwanese localization movement has its roots in the home rule groups founded during the Japanese era and sought to put emphasis on Taiwan as the center of people's lives as opposed Mainland China or Japan. During the Chiang regime, China was promoted as the center of an ideology that would build a Chinese national outlook in a people who had once considered themselves Japanese subjects. Under this ideology, Taiwan was seen as a place for mainlanders to resent as they waited for the re-conquest of the Maoist mainland. Taiwan was often relegated to a backwater province of China in the KMT-supported history books. People were discouraged from studying Taiwan and old customs were to be replaced by "Chinese" customs. Lee, conversely, sought to turn Taiwan into a center rather than an appendage, a shift that was widely supported in Taiwan. However, he has stated that his actions were also based on the premise that

Related Topics:
Taiwanese localization movement - Mainland China - Japan - Mainlanders

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

a Chinese identity and a Taiwanese identity are ultimately incompatible, a notion that does not have universal support on the island, even among supporters of localization.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lee presided over the democratization of Taiwanese society and government in the late-1980s and early-1990s. During his presidency, Lee was followed by persistent suspicions that he secretly supported Taiwan independence and that he was intentionally sabotaging the Kuomintang. The former suspicion was proven true by Lee's behavior after his Presidency, which led to his expulsion from the Kuomintang and subsequently becoming the spiritual leader of the strongly pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union.

Related Topics:
1980s - 1990s - Taiwan independence - Kuomintang - Taiwan Solidarity Union

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~