Profile : Dissident Returns Home to Chase a Huge Dream : * Hsu Hsin-liang spent a decade in exile and time in a Taiwan prison. Now he’s the leader of the top opposition party, and he wants to be president.

Irrepressible as always, opposition leader Hsu Hsin-liang erupted with a guffaw as he recalled how he ended a decade of exile in Los Angeles to face probable imprisonment in his native land.

Officially wanted by Taiwan on sedition charges but refused re-entry because the government feared the political impact of his return, Hsu first slipped into China on a false passport, then sailed for Taiwan with mainland fishermen turned smugglers.

“I faced an uncertain fate,” Hsu, 50, noted, flashing a trademark, Jimmy Carter-style grin that, along with his bald pate, make him stand out in a crowd.

“It was a small, very poor fishing boat,” Hsu continued, recalling his risky 1989 journey. “I was on the boat for about 30 hours. I enjoyed the night on the Taiwan strait. It was beautiful. I thought, this is the way my ancestors came to Taiwan--but in a much worse way. Of course, I was a bit nervous.”

Hsu, who had been granted political asylum by the U.S. government in 1980, knew that even if he managed to slip into Taiwan unobserved, he would eventually be arrested.

One of Taiwan’s most prominent dissidents in the late 1970s, Hsu had publicly outlined the basic scenario for his return in a 1986 interview with The Times in Los Angeles. He predicted that his arrest and imprisonment would provide a boost to the opposition and that political liberalization would eventually lead to his release.

As it happened, the little fishing boat carrying Hsu in 1989 was intercepted offshore, and he arrived in the southern port of Kaohsiung in the custody of customs inspectors.

Tried on sedition charges, Hsu was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government in the late 1970s. Hsu served eight months, then was released in a 1990 presidential amnesty.

Last October he was elected chairman of Taiwan’s main opposition group, the Democratic Progressive Party.

Married, and the father of four children, Hsu still has strong ties with the United States. His eldest child, a daughter, is studying at the University of Chicago. Twin sons are freshmen at Berkeley. His youngest child, a daughter, lives with her parents in Taipei. Hsu has visited Los Angeles twice since his release from prison.

Hsu is a much more frequent visitor to what he calls his “‘home”--the village of Kuolin, outside Taipei, where he grew up and where his brother and parents still live.

“As a kid, I grew up in an agrarian area as a farmer’s child,” he said. “I saw the misery of the farmers, of the peasants around me, including my family. So from childhood, I felt strongly for those people. I decided to be a politician very young. This is quite a traditional Chinese way of thinking--you feel that only through power can you do something for those people.”

Hsu majored in political science at National Chengchi University, then went to the University of Edinburgh from 1967 to 1969 on a scholarship provided by the ruling Nationalist Party.

“I was rather leftist, rather socialist, because I had studied in England at that time,” Hsu said. His political ideas became more conservative during his stay in Los Angeles, and Hsu now says Taiwan’s state-owned banks, railways and communications facilities should be privatized.

Still, the opposition leader has never acquired much personal wealth, and his political base remains primarily in the lower segments of Taiwan society, among farmers and blue-collar workers.

Hsu’s long absence seems to have dimmed the general public’s memory of him, but he has played too central a role in Taiwan’s political evolution ever to be considered an outsider. It was Hsu, after all, who in the late-1970s led the first major efforts--including illegal street protests--aimed at breaking the Nationalist Party’s iron grip on power. Everyone knows his exile was involuntary--and several other key opposition leaders spent most of the 1980s equally out of sight because they were imprisoned.

Hsu is sure enough of himself that he makes no secret of his dream to become Taiwan’s president--and to lead the island to permanent independence from China.

The Nationalist government, set up in Taipei when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek fled here in 1949 after losing the mainland to the Communists, still claims to be the legitimate government of all China. Nationalist Party policy aims at eventual reunification of Taiwan and the mainland after the ultimate collapse of communism in Beijing.

The Qing Dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911, incorporated Taiwan into its empire in 1683, and most Taiwanese today trace their roots to immigrants from coastal China who sailed here during the past 300 years.

But the Democratic Progressives argue that the island’s unusual history--including rule by Japan from 1895 to 1945, and de facto separation from the mainland since 1949--gives it a right to independence, just as the United States broke away from England.

“Our movement to build a national state actually started under Japanese rule, but we haven’t yet succeeded,” Hsu said in a recent interview. “Taiwan was given to China after World War II. It wasn’t fair. Actually, Taiwan should have had the opportunity after World War II to build a national state.

“People on Taiwan wanted it that way. But Taiwan was given back to China by the great powers. So our movement is like that of the other Third World states. The only difference is, it hasn’t succeeded yet.”

In elections held Dec. 21 for the National Assembly, which is due to consider constitutional revisions next year, Hsu led his party in making the “Taiwan independence” question a key issue. The results were disappointing for the opposition, with the Nationalists pulling in 71% of the vote to the Democratic Progressives’ 24%.

But at a post-election press conference, Hsu, alternately grimacing and laughing, insisted that the battle had not gone all that badly. At least the issue had been forcefully presented to the public.

“We have sown the seeds and we have tilled the land,” Hsu said. “This time we will not be able to get a harvest of this issue. But I’m expecting that we will get more in the next election.”

Hsu’s colleagues view him--with a mixture of respect and lightheartedness--as an incurable optimist.

“He is a very good cheerleader,” explained Tsai Shih-yuan, campaign manager for the Democratic Progressives during the recent National Assembly elections. “He tries to present things in a very optimistic way. . . . It’s funny. While he was in jail, he was the most optimistic person in Taiwan. I can only say, that sort of optimism is with him all the time.”

Tsai said he believes “we can probably become the majority party in 10 years.”

Hsu, however, “wants to win in two years, three years,” Tsai said, breaking into laughter at the very thought of such audacity. “He never ceases to amaze me. Of course, I hope that will happen. But I don’t know how it can happen.”

Hsu, for his part, says he’s an optimist largely because he sees historical trends going his way.

“It’s personality. I never feel disappointment or frustration,” Hsu said. “Secondly, as one who likes to read history, I see clearly that our cause will win. We are fighting in conditions in which we can win, although it is difficult. My optimism is based on seeing the change of social and national and international conditions.”

Asked point-blank whether he wants to be Taiwan’s president, Hsu flashed his famous smile.

“Oh yeah, sure, why not?” he replied. “I say yes. If you don’t want to be the president, you are not a serious political figure.”

Biography

Name: Hsu Hsin-liang

Title: Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan’s main opposition group.

Age: 50

Personal: Married with four children. Majored in political science at National Chengchi University. Studied at University of Edinburgh.

Quote: “As one who likes to read history, I see clearly that our cause will win. We are fighting in conditions in which we can win, although it is difficult. My optimism is based on seeing the change of social and national and international conditions.”