A few days ago, there were reports that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had been asked about her legacy. According to the reports, a person asked Tsai that if former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) legacy was the establishment of democracy, what she hoped Taiwan would remember her for. Her immediate response was: “The economy.”
Lee’s contribution to Taiwan was to transform it into a democracy from within the authoritarian framework established by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). “Democracy” was not a legacy Lee chose for himself, but it followed him like a shadow.