Ex-General’s Role in Taiwan Sparks Protest : Asia: He will be prime minister. Some fear he’ll become more powerful than the president.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Thousands of demonstrators opposed to military influence in government marched through Taipei on Sunday to protest the selection of Defense Minister Hau Pei-tsun as Taiwan’s next prime minister.

“Military Rule Is the Nightmare of the People,” declared one typical banner carried by the protesters, who came from universities, unions, religious groups and opposition parties. “Down With Individual Dictatorship,” declared another.

The protest came on the day that President Lee Teng-hui was inaugurated for his first full six-year term, but the protesters’ anger was directed at Hau, a conservative retired general who they fear may become more powerful than the reformist Lee.

Hau “has military power, so the ordinary people are afraid of him,” a middle-aged protester said. Like almost all the about 8,000 demonstrators, this man wore a white-and-red headband that declared: “Oppose Military Men Interfering in Government.”

Lee, a native Taiwanese who succeeded to the presidency in 1988 upon the death of Chiang Ching-kuo, faced conservative opposition within the ruling Nationalist Party to his election to a full term as president. Some analysts view his recent selection of Hau to be the next prime minister as a gesture toward conservatives whose support he needs to govern.

In his inaugural address, Lee revealed plans for fundamental democratic reforms in Taiwan and expressed hope that economic and political reforms in China would ultimately create conditions allowing Taipei and Beijing to discuss reunification of the island with the Chinese mainland. Taipei and Beijing agree that Taiwan is part of China, but each claims to be the legitimate government of both the island and the mainland.

In an important gesture to the political opposition Sunday, the government announced that 10 imprisoned dissidents, including Shih Ming-teh and Hsu Hsin-liang, Taiwan’s most famous political prisoners, would be released within 24 hours. By the end of the day, nine, including Hsu, had been freed. All 10 are associated with advocacy of independence and were imprisoned on sedition charges.

Hsu, who spent nearly a decade as an exile in Los Angeles, was arrested last year when he tried to slip back into Taiwan on a fishing boat. He and Shih, along with several other top opposition leaders, were accused of helping inspire anti-government rioting in Kaohsiung in 1979. Other key leaders, all of whom blamed the government for the 1979 violence, were released after Taiwan lifted martial law in 1987.

Lee’s order also struck down political charges against the current and former chairmen of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and its general secretary.

The Democratic Progressive Party’s political base lies almost entirely with the native-born Taiwanese, who make up about 85% of the island’s population.

Defense Minister Hau, Sunday’s demonstration target, is a key conservative representative of the mainland-born Nationalist Party leaders who still dominate the government, despite the emergence of a few important Taiwan-born politicians, including Lee.

Some analysts in Taipei believe that Hau and Lee are likely to engage in a growing rivalry for power.

“I think that this is a very dangerous move, to appoint Hau Pei-tsun,” Ting Tin-yu, a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, commented recently.

Ting expressed concern that Hau may seek to dominate the government, relying on the military, and that Lee might increasingly rely on the fact that he is Taiwan-born to solidify his own popular support.