Lee Teng-hui and the Dalai Lama

As the saying goes, birds of the same feathers flock together.

In this case, birds of the same "I-am-not-part-of-China" and "ewe...-don't-lump-me-as-part-of-China" flock.

In 1997, then Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui (李登辉) hosted a visit by the Dalai Lama (达赖喇嘛). While the reasons behind the visit were complex, suffice to say that Lee was riding on a popularity wave after his resounding electoral victory a year earlier, and didn't care about poking Beijing in the eye.

And while there is no question about Beijing's sentiments for the Tibetan spiritual leader, it is interesting to read in Denny Roy's "Taiwan A Political History" that many conservatives in Taiwan at that time also despised the Dalai Lama, though Roy did not elaborate why.

I wonder about the reasons for the despise. Was it because the spiritual leader was a "splittist"? Was it because he further complicated Taiwan's foreign relations at that point in time? Or was it because the Dalai Lama, according to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, shuffles around in Gucci (or was it Prada) sandals?