More Defense of Lee Teng-hui

More on Bush's defense of Lee Teng-hui from my previous entry.

In his book, Bush argued that Lee's suggestion of a "two nations theory" (liangguo lun, 两国论) in 1999 was largely "consistent with Taiwan's long-standing rejection of the one-country, two-systems formula, which, in Taiwan's view, assigned subordinate status to special administrative regions."

Bush noted that it was reasonable to conclude that "Lee was making explicit what had been implicit in Taipei's position for almost a decade: that the government of Taiwan possessed sovereignty, just as the Beijing government did."

Bush also argued that Lee was challenging not the status quo itself, but rather the idea that Beijing's relationship to Taipei was one "between a legitimate government and a rebellion group, or between central and local governments."

While Bush's argument may seem fairly logical, I think Bush had largely overlooked the cultural nuance of Lee's statement. While it may be true that Lee had not changed his thinking fundamentally by making known the "two nations theory" in 1999, and that Lee was merely making explicit what had been implicitly known for a long time, the very act of turning something implicit into something explicit was certainly cause for concern.

Come to think of it, it may not be even be entirely right to ascribe cultural undertones to Lee's 1999 statement. In every culture or even within non-cultural contexts, it is natural for eye brows to be raised when someone makes explicit something that had all along been implicit.

Why was it so hard for Bush to see that? But then of course, we have to understand that the central tenet of his book was to defend Lee in a most spirited, vigorous and robust manner.