He oversaw the island’s democratisation and in death is riling China again

As taiwanese contemplated the momentous occasion, in March 1996, of being able to choose their president for the first time, China’s Communist Party launched a campaign of intimidation. Its leaders snarled on television. The armed forces simulated an invasion of Taiwan with beach-landing drills. And missiles landed in the seas around the island, in effect blockading it. The object of China’s fury: the incumbent president, Lee Teng-hui, whom they accused of wanting to split the motherland by formally declaring Taiwan’s independence.

China’s actions backfired. Taiwanese refused to be intimidated. Election rallies were huge. Children rode on parents’ shoulders, air horns lent a carnival air and taxis raced around the capital, Taipei, flying candidates’ flags out of their windows. Never has Banyan witnessed such a boisterous election. Mr Lee’s stump speeches drew crowds to flatter a rock star. Tall and with a near-permanent toothy grin, he was the first leader of the Kuomintang (kmt, or Nationalist) party to address people in their native Taiwanese rather than in Mandarin, the language that kmt carpetbaggers had brought with them when they fled the mainland, defeated by the Communists in 1949. Taiwanese, he said, should not fear China’s “state terrorism”. His victory was emphatic, with more votes than the three other candidates combined. Taxis were still beeping the following day.

READ MORE HERE