56 Facts About Lee Teng-hui

1.

Lee Teng-hui was a Taiwanese statesman and agriculturist who served as President of the Republic of China under the 1947 Constitution and chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000.

2.

Lee Teng-hui was the first president to be born in Taiwan, the last to be indirectly elected and the first to be directly elected.

3.

Lee Teng-hui was considered the "spiritual leader" of the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union, and recruited for the party in the past.

4.

Lee Teng-hui was born in the rural farming community of Sanshi Village, Taihoku Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan.

5.

Lee Teng-hui's father was a middle-level Japanese police aide, and his elder brother, Lee Teng-chin, who was known as in Japanese, joined the colony's police academy and soon volunteered for the Imperial Japanese Navy and died in Manila.

6.

Lee Teng-hui was ordered back to Japan in 1945 and participated in the clean-up after the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 1945.

7.

Lee Teng-hui stayed in Japan after the surrender and graduated from Kyoto Imperial University in 1946.

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8.

Lee Teng-hui joined the Chinese Communist Party for two stints, in September 1946 and October or November 1947, both times briefly.

9.

In that same interview, Lee Teng-hui said that he had strongly opposed Communism for a long time because he understood the theory well and knew that it was doomed to fail.

10.

Lee Teng-hui stated that he joined the Communists out of hatred for the KMT.

11.

In 1953, Lee Teng-hui received a master's degree in agricultural economics from the Iowa State University in the United States.

12.

Lee Teng-hui returned to Taiwan in 1957 as an economist with the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, an organization sponsored by the US which aimed at modernizing Taiwan's agricultural system and at land reform.

13.

Lee Teng-hui encountered Christianity as a young man and in 1961 was baptised.

14.

For most of the rest of his political career, despite holding high office, Lee Teng-hui made a habit of giving sermons at churches around Taiwan, mostly on apolitical themes of service and humility.

15.

Lee Teng-hui was a member of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.

16.

Lee Teng-hui was proficient in both Mandarin and Japanese and was able to speak well in English.

17.

Shortly after returning to Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui joined the KMT in 1971 and was made a cabinet minister without portfolio responsible for agriculture.

18.

In 1978, Lee Teng-hui was appointed mayor of Taipei, where he solved water shortages and improved the city's irrigation problems.

19.

Lee Teng-hui was formally elected by the National Assembly in 1984.

20.

Chiang Ching-kuo died in January 1988 and Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president.

21.

At the 13th National Congress of Kuomintang in July 1988, Lee Teng-hui named 31 members of the Central Committee, 16 of whom were bensheng ren: for the first time, bensheng ren held a majority in what was then a powerful policy-making body.

22.

Fourteen of these new appointees, like Lee Teng-hui, had been educated in the United States.

23.

Lee Teng-hui expressed his support of their goals and pledged his commitment to full democracy in Taiwan.

24.

In May 1991, Lee Teng-hui spearheaded a drive to eliminate the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion, laws put in place following the KMT arrival in 1949 that suspended the democratic functions of the government.

25.

Lee Teng-hui was replaced by Lien Chan, then an ally of Lee.

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26.

Lee Teng-hui, observing constitutional term limits he had helped enact, stepped down from the presidency at the end of his term in 2000.

27.

Supporters of rival candidates Lien Chan and James Soong accused Lee Teng-hui of setting up the split in the KMT that had enabled Chen to win.

28.

Lee Teng-hui had promoted the uncharismatic Lien over the popular Soong as the KMT candidate.

29.

Lee Teng-hui sought to turn Taiwan into a center rather than an appendage.

30.

Under Lee Teng-hui, it was stated that "legally, historically, geographically, or in reality", all of the South China Sea and Spratly islands were the territory of the Republic of China and under ROC sovereignty, and denounced actions undertaken there by Malaysia and the Philippines, in a statement on 13 July 1999 released by the foreign ministry of Taiwan.

31.

Since resigning the chairmanship of the KMT, Lee Teng-hui stated a number of political positions and ideas which he did not mention while he was president, but which he appeared to have privately maintained.

32.

Lee Teng-hui publicly supported the Name Rectification Campaigns in Taiwan and proposed changing the name of the country from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan.

33.

Lee Teng-hui generally opposed unlimited economic ties with the PRC, placing restrictions on Taiwanese wishing to invest in China.

34.

However, the two's relationship began to worsen when Lee Teng-hui questioned Chen's reform of the fisheries branch of the Council of Agriculture.

35.

Lee Teng-hui publicly criticized Chen in 2006 by calling him incapable and corrupt.

36.

In February 2007, Lee Teng-hui shocked the media when he revealed that he did not support Taiwanese independence, when he was widely seen as the spiritual leader of the pro-independence movement.

37.

Lee Teng-hui said that he supported opening up trade and tourism with China, a position he had opposed before.

38.

Lee Teng-hui later explained that Taiwan already enjoys de facto independence and that political maneuvering over details of expressing it is counterproductive.

39.

Lee Teng-hui enjoyed a warm relationship with the people and culture of Japan.

40.

Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945 and natives of the island who grew up in that period, such as Lee Teng-hui, attended schools where Japanese language, songs, and stories were taught.

41.

Lee Teng-hui's father was a middle-level Japanese police aide; his elder brother died serving in the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II and is listed in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

42.

Lee Teng-hui spoke fondly of his upbringing and his teachers and was welcomed in visits to Japan since leaving office.

43.

Lee Teng-hui admired and enjoyed all things Japanese such as traditional Japanese values.

44.

In July 2015, Lee Teng-hui visited Japan, and again stated that Japan has full sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.

45.

Lee Teng-hui stated, in 2015, that Taiwanese people were "subjects of Japan" and that Taiwan and Japan were "one country", sparking much criticism from both China and the Pan-Blue Coalition.

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46.

Lee Teng-hui published a book, Remaining Life: My Life Journey and the Road of Taiwan's Democracy, in February 2016.

47.

Lee Teng-hui was acquitted by the Taipei District Court on 15 November 2013.

48.

Prosecutors appealed the ruling, but on 20 August 2014, Lee Teng-hui was cleared of the charges again.

49.

Lee Teng-hui married Tseng Wen-hui on 9 February 1949, with whom he had three children.

50.

Shortly after stepping down from the presidency in 2000, Lee Teng-hui had coronary artery bypass surgery.

51.

Lee Teng-hui was sent to Taipei Veterans General Hospital in November 2015 after experiencing numbness in his right hand, and later diagnosed with a minor stroke.

52.

Lee Teng-hui was discharged from hospital on 31 January 2019, and President Tsai Ing-wen later visited him at his home.

53.

On 8 February 2020, Lee Teng-hui was hospitalised at Taipei Veterans General Hospital after choking while drinking milk and retained in the hospital under observation due to lung infection concerns.

54.

Lee Teng-hui died of multiple organ failure and septic shock at Taipei Veterans General Hospital on 7:24 pm, 30 July 2020, at the age of 97.

55.

Lee Teng-hui had the nickname "Mr Democracy" and Taiwan's "Father of Democracy" for his actions to democratize Taiwan's government and his opposition to ruling Communists in China.

56.

Kuomintang members still blame Lee Teng-hui for losing the political party's long-term rule of the country and believe that Lee Teng-hui's moves led to the fragmentation of the KMT.