Direct Presidential Election Defended Democratic Values, Redefined Taiwan's Post-Cold War International Status
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Taiwan's first direct presidential election. Scholars note that against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's collapse, Eastern Europe's democratization, and the CCP's missile exercises in the 1990s, the 1996 election "redefined" Taiwan's international position in the post-Cold War era. Before its semiconductor industry became its "sacred mountain of protection," this election established Taiwan's crucial "democratic asset" for winning allied support.
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This year marks the 30th anniversary of Taiwan's first direct presidential election. Through interviews with key figures and scholars, the Central News Agency aims to outline the course and character of Taiwan's transition from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. From the martial law era, when one had to write a 'last will' before forming a new political party, to the 1990 Wild Lily student movement demanding political reform with the support of civil society, Taiwan completed its democratization through a bloodless revolution in just a few short years. The first direct presidential election was held in 1996, a globally unique success story of democracy. Looking back at history, and re-examining and rewriting the chapters of Taiwan's democratic movement, can help us face the new challenges of deepening and consolidating democracy today.
It has been nearly 30 years since Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996. Reviewing this history, scholars point out that amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, the democratic transformation of Eastern European countries, and the CCP's missile military exercises in the 1990s, this presidential election "redefined" Taiwan's international position in the post-Cold War era. In the years before Taiwan's semiconductor industry became its "sacred mountain of protection," it possessed a democratic asset that could be used to win the support of allies.
## The 1990s Wave of Authoritarian Transitions: Taiwan's Democratic Transformation Was the Most Successful
In the 1990s, many countries were in a chaotic era of transitioning from authoritarian regimes. In 1989, a student movement demanding political reform erupted in China but was suppressed by the government in the Tiananmen Square Massacre (also known as the June Fourth Incident), leading to Western economic sanctions against the Chinese government. Starting in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, leading more than a dozen republics to seek independence, and a wave of democratization swept through Poland and other Eastern European countries.
In March 1990, the Wild Lily student movement broke out in Taiwan, with university students demanding a full re-election of the National Assembly. Then-President Lee Teng-hui convened a National Affairs Conference. In 1991, Taiwan terminated the Period of Mobilization for the Suppression of Communist Rebellion and returned to the Constitution. In December 1992, a full parliamentary election was held. In March 1996, Taiwan held its first direct presidential election.
Lai I-chung, a consulting member of a Taiwanese think tank who was studying in the United States in the 1990s, recalls that Taiwan's democratization was actually moving faster than that of other countries at the time. However, unless one was a dedicated researcher of Taiwan, it was difficult for the average person to grasp what kind of country Taiwan was. "Without a presidential election, people would think it's not for real!"
The direct presidential election meant that the basis of the Republic of China regime's legitimacy would shift from the National Assembly, which had representatives from all provinces of mainland China, to the more than 21 million people of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. In terms of ethnic and national identity, it was a crucial institutional watershed, transforming the identity from "citizen of the Republic of China" to "Taiwanese."
## Direct Presidential Election Becomes Taiwan's New Calling Card, Standing Up Against Communist Threats
Shen Ming-shih, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Research at INDSR, pointed to the memoirs of Chang Wan-nien, then Vice Chairman of the CCP's Central Military Commission. Chang, who was in charge of the military exercises against Taiwan, considered the CCP's drills during former President Lee Teng-hui's 1995 visit to the US and the 1996 presidential election a success in striking a blow against "Taiwan independence."
While the collapse of the Soviet Union freed many Eastern European countries from its iron grip, some countries, like Yugoslavia, descended into frequent civil wars. Lai I-chung said that Taiwan's presidential election, combined with the CCP's missile exercises, gave Taiwan a role in standing up against communist threats in addition to its democratic transition, which was very different from the democratization models of other countries.
Chen Shih-min, an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University who was then a doctoral student at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, recalls that the current Vice Premier of the Executive Yuan, Cheng Li-chun, who was studying at Paris Nanterre University at the same time, was the main organizer among Taiwanese students in France. She gathered everyone for a sit-in protest at the Pompidou Centre plaza in Paris, holding banners to oppose China's military threat against Taiwan.
"Taiwan was already one of the world's top economies, not small by any means, so the whole world would report on Taiwan's presidential election," Chen pointed out. The presidential election increased Taiwan's visibility, allowing the international community to better understand that Taiwan is a de facto independent country, which helped Taiwan gain support from Western liberal democracies.
## Missile Crisis: Calm on the Surface, Tense Underneath as People Confront CCP Threat with Ballots
However, back then, Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu were directly facing the CCP's threats of verbal attacks and military intimidation. The government was pondering how to successfully complete the presidential election. At that time, Shen Ming-shih had just obtained his master's degree from the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies at National Chengchi University and had returned to the Army General Headquarters as a foreign affairs liaison officer, personally experiencing these two Taiwan Strait missile crises. He recalled that the atmosphere in the military was "outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense."
Shen noted that because the CCP had already conducted a wave of military exercises in 1995, the ROC Armed Forces had some experience by 1996. He could see people commuting normally in the military camps and at the Army GHQ, but frontline combat units on the offshore and main islands were already on "high alert," closely monitoring the movements of the PLA. The government's hope was to prevent the CCP's exercises from causing public panic in Taiwan.
Su Tzu-yun, Director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research at INDSR, had his military interest sparked by playing with military models with his brother, the current mayor of Tainan, Huang Wei-cher, in his childhood. He chuckled, saying he originally wanted to be a real estate agent, but when the Taiwan Strait missile crisis broke out while he was studying at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University, the CCP's military exercises made him decide to devote himself to the field of military strategy and policy research.
"1996 was the first time Taiwanese people used their votes to resist the threat from China," Su pointed out. Faced with the CCP's verbal and military intimidation, the Taiwanese people showed unprecedented unity. He remembered that media outlets went to the frontlines in Kinmen to report, and news spread in the Legislative Yuan that soldiers on the offshore islands had started writing their last wills. A wave of public fervor swept across Taiwan, creating an atmosphere of "one island, one destiny."
On March 23, 1996, Taiwan's first direct presidential election was held with four sets of candidates. Fueled by the Taiwan Strait missile crisis, the final voter turnout reached a high of 76.04%. The Kuomintang (KMT) ticket of Lee Teng-hui and Lien Chan won with 54% of the vote and were sworn into office at the Presidential Office on May 20 of the same year.
This first direct presidential election left a deep contemporary mark on Taiwan's subsequent political and economic development, its efforts to win support from international democratic allies, its military procurement, and even the current gray-zone harassment by CCP aircraft and ships.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, it was also an era of economic globalization, privatization, and the shift of supply chains to China.
Lee Chun, Director of the Center for Economic and Legal System at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, pointed out that the economic characteristic of Taiwan at that time was the retreat of the party-state system, with the market economy assuming a dominant position and releasing economic...
It has been nearly 30 years since Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996. Reviewing this history, scholars point out that amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, the democratic transformation of Eastern European countries, and the CCP's missile military exercises in the 1990s, this presidential election "redefined" Taiwan's international position in the post-Cold War era. In the years before Taiwan's semiconductor industry became its "sacred mountain of protection," it possessed a democratic asset that could be used to win the support of allies.
## The 1990s Wave of Authoritarian Transitions: Taiwan's Democratic Transformation Was the Most Successful
In the 1990s, many countries were in a chaotic era of transitioning from authoritarian regimes. In 1989, a student movement demanding political reform erupted in China but was suppressed by the government in the Tiananmen Square Massacre (also known as the June Fourth Incident), leading to Western economic sanctions against the Chinese government. Starting in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, leading more than a dozen republics to seek independence, and a wave of democratization swept through Poland and other Eastern European countries.
In March 1990, the Wild Lily student movement broke out in Taiwan, with university students demanding a full re-election of the National Assembly. Then-President Lee Teng-hui convened a National Affairs Conference. In 1991, Taiwan terminated the Period of Mobilization for the Suppression of Communist Rebellion and returned to the Constitution. In December 1992, a full parliamentary election was held. In March 1996, Taiwan held its first direct presidential election.
Lai I-chung, a consulting member of a Taiwanese think tank who was studying in the United States in the 1990s, recalls that Taiwan's democratization was actually moving faster than that of other countries at the time. However, unless one was a dedicated researcher of Taiwan, it was difficult for the average person to grasp what kind of country Taiwan was. "Without a presidential election, people would think it's not for real!"
The direct presidential election meant that the basis of the Republic of China regime's legitimacy would shift from the National Assembly, which had representatives from all provinces of mainland China, to the more than 21 million people of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. In terms of ethnic and national identity, it was a crucial institutional watershed, transforming the identity from "citizen of the Republic of China" to "Taiwanese."
## Direct Presidential Election Becomes Taiwan's New Calling Card, Standing Up Against Communist Threats
Shen Ming-shih, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Research at INDSR, pointed to the memoirs of Chang Wan-nien, then Vice Chairman of the CCP's Central Military Commission. Chang, who was in charge of the military exercises against Taiwan, considered the CCP's drills during former President Lee Teng-hui's 1995 visit to the US and the 1996 presidential election a success in striking a blow against "Taiwan independence."
While the collapse of the Soviet Union freed many Eastern European countries from its iron grip, some countries, like Yugoslavia, descended into frequent civil wars. Lai I-chung said that Taiwan's presidential election, combined with the CCP's missile exercises, gave Taiwan a role in standing up against communist threats in addition to its democratic transition, which was very different from the democratization models of other countries.
Chen Shih-min, an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University who was then a doctoral student at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, recalls that the current Vice Premier of the Executive Yuan, Cheng Li-chun, who was studying at Paris Nanterre University at the same time, was the main organizer among Taiwanese students in France. She gathered everyone for a sit-in protest at the Pompidou Centre plaza in Paris, holding banners to oppose China's military threat against Taiwan.
"Taiwan was already one of the world's top economies, not small by any means, so the whole world would report on Taiwan's presidential election," Chen pointed out. The presidential election increased Taiwan's visibility, allowing the international community to better understand that Taiwan is a de facto independent country, which helped Taiwan gain support from Western liberal democracies.
## Missile Crisis: Calm on the Surface, Tense Underneath as People Confront CCP Threat with Ballots
However, back then, Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu were directly facing the CCP's threats of verbal attacks and military intimidation. The government was pondering how to successfully complete the presidential election. At that time, Shen Ming-shih had just obtained his master's degree from the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies at National Chengchi University and had returned to the Army General Headquarters as a foreign affairs liaison officer, personally experiencing these two Taiwan Strait missile crises. He recalled that the atmosphere in the military was "outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense."
Shen noted that because the CCP had already conducted a wave of military exercises in 1995, the ROC Armed Forces had some experience by 1996. He could see people commuting normally in the military camps and at the Army GHQ, but frontline combat units on the offshore and main islands were already on "high alert," closely monitoring the movements of the PLA. The government's hope was to prevent the CCP's exercises from causing public panic in Taiwan.
Su Tzu-yun, Director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research at INDSR, had his military interest sparked by playing with military models with his brother, the current mayor of Tainan, Huang Wei-cher, in his childhood. He chuckled, saying he originally wanted to be a real estate agent, but when the Taiwan Strait missile crisis broke out while he was studying at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University, the CCP's military exercises made him decide to devote himself to the field of military strategy and policy research.
"1996 was the first time Taiwanese people used their votes to resist the threat from China," Su pointed out. Faced with the CCP's verbal and military intimidation, the Taiwanese people showed unprecedented unity. He remembered that media outlets went to the frontlines in Kinmen to report, and news spread in the Legislative Yuan that soldiers on the offshore islands had started writing their last wills. A wave of public fervor swept across Taiwan, creating an atmosphere of "one island, one destiny."
On March 23, 1996, Taiwan's first direct presidential election was held with four sets of candidates. Fueled by the Taiwan Strait missile crisis, the final voter turnout reached a high of 76.04%. The Kuomintang (KMT) ticket of Lee Teng-hui and Lien Chan won with 54% of the vote and were sworn into office at the Presidential Office on May 20 of the same year.
This first direct presidential election left a deep contemporary mark on Taiwan's subsequent political and economic development, its efforts to win support from international democratic allies, its military procurement, and even the current gray-zone harassment by CCP aircraft and ships.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, it was also an era of economic globalization, privatization, and the shift of supply chains to China.
Lee Chun, Director of the Center for Economic and Legal System at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, pointed out that the economic characteristic of Taiwan at that time was the retreat of the party-state system, with the market economy assuming a dominant position and releasing economic...