Lee Teng-hui

In “President Caught in a Whopper” (Dec. 15), Jim Mann accused the president of the Republic of China, Lee Teng-hui, of stretching the truth during a speech for his party’s candidate in next year’s election. Mann was under the impression that President Lee had claimed the U.S. and Japan want to see Taiwan’s ruling party, the KMT, win the election, lest Asia become unstable.

Here are President Lee’s exact words: “Friends in America, Japan and other countries are extremely concerned about Taiwan’s election, because the stability and development of Asia and the rest of the world will be greatly affected should the KMT fail to win. So everyone is really concerned.”

Note that President Lee said, “friends in America,” not as Mann claimed, “Taiwan’s friends overseas, especially the United States and Japan.”

Taiwan has experienced peaceful transitions of power for each of the presidents of the Republic of China over the past five decades.

Mann can rest assured that the voters of Taiwan will exercise their will at the ballot box next March just as they did four years ago. And however they vote, Asia and the world will witness Taiwan’s democracy becoming stronger and more mature than ever.

KAO JEN-HWAN

Director, Information Division

Taipei Economic and Cultural

Office, Los Angeles

* It is common knowledge that Lee thinks there will be no stability in Asia without him in power, although everyone else thinks otherwise. Mann correctly points out that Lee in his last few months in office may do something irrational, such as “spark a war with China.”

Lee has long ago given up on U.S. support of his independence policy, because both Democrats and Republicans advocate one China under peaceful reunification which, of course, is not what he is pursuing. Recently, Lee secretly invited the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara--the one who denied that Japanese troops committed the Rape of Nanking in 1937--to Taiwan under a disguised name. It seems Lee is working hard on the Japanese to recognize an independent Taiwan.

I hope Washington, especially Congress, will keep a close check on Lee, the real troublemaker.

JACK LIU

Woodland Hills