Lee Teng-hui

Early Life and Academic Career

Lee Teng-hui, whose ancestral home was in Fujian, was born on 15 January 1923 in Sanzhi, Taipei, into a poor family. Under Japanese colonial rule he attended Kyoto Imperial University under the Japanese name Iwasato Masao. After graduating in agricultural economics from National Taiwan University, he worked at the Taiwan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry and the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction. In 1962 he received a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to study at Cornell University, completing his doctorate in three years; his dissertation, 'Intersectoral Capital Flows in the Economic Development of Taiwan,' won the American Agricultural Economics Association's award for best dissertation in 1968.

From Mayor of Taipei to Succeeding the Presidency

Lee became Mayor of Taipei in June 1978, was promoted to Governor of Taiwan Province in 1981, and was elected the Republic of China's seventh Vice President in 1984. When President Chiang Ching-kuo died in January 1988, Lee succeeded to the presidency under the constitution, becoming the first Taiwanese-born (benshengren) president in Taiwan's history and the central political figure in Taiwan's democratisation.

Constitutional Reform and the Cornell Visit

During his presidency, Lee advanced a series of major constitutional reforms, including the termination of the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilisation for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion (1991), the full re-election of the Legislative Yuan (1992), and the direct election of the President (1996), completing Taiwan's peaceful transition from authoritarian to democratic governance. In June 1995, Lee returned in a private capacity to his alma mater, Cornell University, to deliver a speech, becoming the first sitting Taiwanese president to visit the United States since the severance of diplomatic relations in 1979, an event that directly triggered the PRC's missile tests and military exercises constituting the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. In March 1996, he won Taiwan's first direct presidential election with 54% of the vote under PLA military intimidation.

The "Two States Theory" and Later Years

On 9 July 1999, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, Lee characterised cross-strait relations as being conducted on a 'state-to-state, or at least a special state-to-state' basis — the so-called 'Two States Theory' — provoking a sharp reaction from Beijing and a rapid escalation in cross-strait tensions. In 2000 the Kuomintang lost the presidential election, ending more than half a century of KMT rule in Taiwan, and some within the party blamed Lee for the defeat. In July 2001 he spearheaded the formation of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (formally established on 12 August), becoming its spiritual leader without formally joining the party; on 21 September that year, the KMT's Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee revoked his party membership, citing his 'public attacks on the party and collaboration with other organisations and parties to undermine it.' In his later years Lee moved towards a stronger Taiwanese nativist orientation and is regarded by many as a key figure in the formation of Taiwanese political identity, while official PRC discourse refers to him as the 'godfather of Taiwan independence.' Lee Teng-hui died in Taipei on 30 July 2020, at the age of 97.