[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 52 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S3801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT LEE TENG-HUI, 
                   PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

 Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to call my 
colleagues' attention to a recent event hosted by the National 
Endowment for Democracy honoring the first popularly elected President 
of the Republic of China, Lee Teng-hui. I was honored to serve as a 
cosponsor of this event with Senator Lieberman.
  It is entirely appropriate that this reception was organized by the 
National Endowment for Democracy [NED]. The recent direct, free and 
fair multiparty election for President in Taiwan is a model example of 
the activities supported by NED. I want to use this occasion to 
congratulate the NED for its continued involvement in encouraging free 
and democratic institutions throughout the world through private sector 
initiatives. A copy of the National Endowment for Democracy's tribute 
to President Lee is included at the end of my statement.
  Americans everywhere should congratulate the people of Taiwan in 
casting ballots to complete their transition to a democracy during 
trying times--the first such transition in Chinese history. It is a 
tribute to the people's spirit and determination that bullets did not 
deter people from casting their ballots. And President Lee, who 
received 54 percent of the vote, can proudly take credit for having led 
Taiwan to this important juncture. He has set an example in leading his 
countrymen in deciding that the leadership of Taiwan will forever more 
be settled at the ballot box.
  His victory on March 23 culminated a series of reforms--including 
lifting martial law, deregulating the media, legalizing opposition 
parties, and holding popular elections for all parliamentary seats--
that have taken place in a peaceful and prosperous environment. This is 
an accomplishment for which all the free world should be proud.
  President Lee deserves not only our well-wishes, but also our 
continued support as he now moves forward to map out Taiwan's destiny. 
As Taiwan continues to emerge as a force for democracy, freedom, and 
stability in Asia, I believe the United States should encourage their 
efforts to be represented in international organizations such as the 
World Trade Organization. The United States should also do what it can 
to encourage dialog between Taiwan and Beijing, and to contribute to 
peace and stability in the region.
  I join my many friends in Taiwan in celebrating President Lee's 
triumph as Taiwan marks a milestone in civilization's march down the 
road of self-determination leading to liberty, human dignity, and 
personal and societal fulfillment.
  I ask that a statement from the National Endowment for Democracy be 
printed in the Record.
  The statement follows:

                   Tribute to President Lee Teng-hui

       (By the National Endowment for Democracy, April 16, 1996)

       The election of Lee Teng-hui on March 23, 1996, as the 
     first popularly elected President of the Republic of China 
     was the culmination of a 10-year process of transition which 
     The Encyclopedia of Democracy has called ``a political 
     miracle in twentieth-century Chinese politics, making Taiwan 
     the first Chinese democracy.'' President Lee was the central 
     figure and driving force behind this remarkable political 
     transformation.
       From the moment he assumed the presidency on January 13, 
     1988, becoming the first native-born Taiwanese to hold this 
     office, he devoted himself entirely to the historic task of 
     democratic transformation launched by his predecessor Chiang 
     Ching-kuo. The process was at once swift and methodical, with 
     each bold step coming in the proper sequence, laying the 
     foundation for each subsequent advance.
       Acting in the Confucian tradition of governance through 
     consensus, he initiated the process with a conference on 
     national affairs that achieved a political reconciliation 
     between his own Nationalist Part and the opposition 
     Democratic Progressive Party. There followed an agreement to 
     establish a memorial and pay compensation to the victims of 
     the uprising of February 1947; the elaboration of an approach 
     to the issue of unification which became the basis for a new, 
     pragmatic policy toward the People's Republic; the election 
     of a new National Assembly representing only the voters of 
     Taiwan that amended the constitution, preparing the way for 
     the popular election of the president and vice-president by 
     1996; the voluntary retirement from the government of the 
     party elders from the generation of Chiang Ching-kuo; and the 
     first election for provincial governor and for mayors of 
     Kaohsiung and Taipei, the race in Tapei being won by a member 
     of the DPP who was a former political dissident.
       This stunning process of change, leading ultimately to 
     President Lee's election and the establishment of the first 
     Chinese democracy, was all the more significant because it 
     took place against a background of mounting threats from the 
     mainland--which fears a Chinese model of democracy--and 
     skepticism emanating from some capitals to the effect that 
     democracy is a Western system unsuited to Asian cultures.
       But it is precisely on this point, having to do with the 
     roots of Chinese democracy in Confucian culture, that 
     President Lee has spoken with unusual power and eloquence. At 
     the conference on third wave democracy sponsored last August 
     by the Endowment and the Institute for National Policy 
     Research, President Lee expressed his confidence that ``by 
     injecting into our modern democratic order the political 
     precepts long inherent in Chinese culture--of exalting the 
     people's will and claiming that the government and the people 
     form a unity--we can infuse democracy with a new vitality.''
       Lee Teng-hui is thus a unique figure in Chinese history, an 
     individual with the wisdom to understand the need to 
     integrate the two competing camps of contemporary Chinese 
     political thought: the Confucianists and the advocates of 
     Westernization. In so doing, he has embodied the Confucian 
     ideal of ren. described in the entry on Confucianism in The 
     Encyclopedia of Democracy as ``cultivating benevolence, 
     developing one's faculties, sublimating one's personality, 
     and upholding the right to education, the right to 
     subsistence, and the right to social and political mobility 
     without distinction according to class.'' Ren, according to 
     the Encyclopedia, represents ``a new democratic ideal of 
     society,''
       It is this ideal which President Lee Teng-hui has sought 
     for his country and for the Chinese people. The National 
     Endowment for Democracy is therefore proud to honor President 
     Lee by presenting him with an embossed four-volume set of The 
     Encyclopedia of Democracy, which recognizes his extraordinary 
     contribution and confirms his philosophical vision. We do so 
     in the belief that his message of democracy and 
     reconciliation, rooted in Chinese history and culture, have 
     an enduring relevance for China's future.

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