While “deep green” people urge the Taiwanese to counter the judicial persecution of Chen to safeguard the system of law and order, the career of the former president, ironically, demonstrates the practice of democracy in Taiwan and how far it has progressed to date.

The success story of Chen can be considered one of the legends in politics in Taiwan. Being the son of a family living in “third-level poverty” (the poorest), Chen was once a member of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), an organization he has devoted his adult life to opposing, and a recipient of a KMT-sponsored scholarship. He opened a law firm called “Cathay” (China), which was Chen’s lifelong arch political foe, and served as a defense lawyer in the Kaohsiung Incident in 1979 that was engineered by advocates of the Taiwan independence movement. In 1989, he was elected to the Legislative Yuan, and in 1994 he was elected to a four-year term as mayor of Taipei, the capital of the Republic of China (ROC). In 2000, after being defeated for a second term as Taipei mayor, Chen surprised almost all people by winning the presidency of the ROC with 39 percent of the votes in a three-way race, thus effecting a “power transfer” from the KMT to an opposition party — the DPP — for the first time in Taiwan history. Then, in 2004 Chen was reelected by a razor-thin margin only after an alleged assassination attempt of “two bullets.” The policies of his administration zigzagged through a “new middle-of-the-road line” to “five no’s” and to an admission that “Taiwan independence is self-deceiving.” Later, when he became a target of the judicial investigation of his corrupt activities, to get himself out of this plight, Chen was forced to openly champion the causes of “one side, one country,” “a referendum on joining the United Nations,” the “Taiwan state” and the “fund for nation-building.” Finally, a handcuffed Chen put a full stop to his saga.

By any standard, this brief sketch of Chen’s life speaks for the fact that Taiwan was a fairly open society even under the rule of two late President Chiangs. If not, Chen, a hardcore member of the opposition, could not have received a complete education and steadily climbed the political ladder until he reached the pinnacle as supreme leader of Taiwan. It is no exaggeration to say that Chen was nurtured by the successive regimes of the KMT.

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