In 1987, before former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) enacted a policy allowing retired soldiers to return to China to visit relatives, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) secretary-general Lee Huan (李煥) sought out Robert Lai (賴義雄), a member of the dangwai (outside the party) movement, who was in Taipei at the time, for his opinion on the proposed policy.
Lai said that based on humanitarian principles, retired soldiers should be allowed to return to China to visit their relatives. The next day, a headline in a prominent “anti-communist” newspaper reported that an overseas dissident supported the policy.