Former President Lee Teng-hui, left, and President Chen Shui-bian arrive at the same time to a meeting to discuss the possibilities of a coalition government Monday, Dec. 3, 2001, in Taipei. Lee is emerging as a major force in Taiwan's quest to build a coalition government that seeks to end months of legislative gridlock between ruling DPP, Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Nationalist Party. (AP Photo/Wally Santana) 

President Chen Shui-bian is a dedicated democrat. And with good reason. When elected on March 18, 2000, on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket, Chen defeated the long-ruling Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) party of Chiang Kai-shek, which had jailed him for eight months on charges of libeling a high-ranking KMT member while advocating the right to start an opposition party. When Chen says he will clean up corruption and guide Taiwan towards a democratic future, he speaks with experience and personal commitment.

Chen is clearly a man with a mission, passionate and charismatic. I had seen that at Friday night's DPP rally. He is also a man of lore. Everyone in Taiwan knows of his rise from dirt-poor beginnings, the son of a plantation day laborer. And they know of his lucrative practice in maritime commercial law and academic success after having studied at National Taiwan University on scholarship. They also know the shocking story of his wife, Wu Shuchen, who was struck and literally run over three times by a truck in 1985 in what some called an assassination attempt by the KMT. No one was ever charged in the crime, and she remains confined to a wheelchair, although politically active.
The election for the Legislative Yuan (parliament) had been Saturday, December 1. The president's party had won big; 1 of 3 voters supported the DPP. He was happy, we were told, and wanted to meet our group Monday at the Presidential Office at 9 a.m. My colleagues and I donned our best attire. This was a special occasion. 

Monday was a sparklingly beautiful day. The sun was brilliant, the air warm but not humid. As we de-bussed, I noted that the Presidential Office Building is located at one end of a wide avenue called Ketagalan Blvd, recently re-named in recognition of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples. A short sprint up Ketagalan Blvd., about 2 blocks away, was the Kuomintang (KMT) headquarters, the seat of power for nearly 50 years. The KMT building of tan-ish stone - blond and bland with modern fenestration - now seemed oddly out of place so near the Presidential Office, but so far from power.

After entering the ornate Presidential Office Building, built during Japanese occupation and one of Taipei's "must see" tourist attractions, we were ushered through the atrium, up the grand staircase with luxurious red carpet and along a long corridor with picture-perfect palace guards to the president's reception room on the 2nd floor. Around the large, rectangular stateroom were chairs for each of us. And at the front of the room 2 chairs awaited - one had William Kristol's name on it. The other was for the president.

William Kristol is the well-known conservative Washington analyst and commentator and former chief of staff under U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett. Kristol who now heads the Project for the New American Century acted as our eloquent respondent to the president's greeting. Placed next to each of us was a cup of steaming jasmine tea and a beautifully appointed book detailing the president's first year of successes in office, and a smaller booklet of his most important speeches.

The room hushed; then as if by clockwork, the president strode briskly into the chamber. He immediately turned to greet us individually with a firm handshake. Introducing each of us was the president's Senior Advisor at the National Security Council, Michael Ying-mao Kau. Kau speaks fluent American easily. He should! He is one of the Taiwanese diaspora who returned to help his country following a successful career in the United States. Kau spent nearly three decades at Brown University in Providence, RI, one of America's finest and innovative institutions of higher learning. He is currently "on leave" from Brown. A professor of political science, Michael Kau was well-trained--and he trained well--I learned from one of his admiring former students, who now lives in Taipei. But my point is that the president is surrounded by many such professionals (I'll introduce others later) who emigrated to the U.S. and enjoyed long and successful careers here. In short, Taiwan is not just now learning democracy. Rather, many of its leaders and tutors are "Americans" who have returned to their birth-land with all the professional skills and cultural values of the U.S.

Michael Kau has one other career achievement most professors can only dream about. His former student, Douglas Paal, has been nominated to become the new United States' director of the American Institute in Taiwan. That title is equivalent to U.S. "ambassador" to Taiwan. When Paal's expected confirmation is complete, relations between the United States and Taiwan should enjoy a very personal touch.

As President Chen began his presentation, he seemed as much at home in the trappings of power--black suit, black shoes, black hair with a razor sharp part and a blazing red necktie, as he had been at ease during Friday's political rally. Of the many ideas he broached, two, I thought, captured his message. The first idea was "inclusion"; the second was "stability."

Americans are not unaccustomed to hearing politicians bray about the need for inclusiveness - after a particularly nasty election. But I found Chen's approach different. He had announced before the parliamentary election on December 1 the desire for an alliance of the political parties to help shape national policy. Indeed Chen had experienced exclusion - working to create the Democratic Progressive Party before opposition to the KMT had even been allowed. Now he welcomed the opposition in a National Stability Alliance.

President Chen told our group that the first thing he had done upon learning of the DPP's legislative success was to phone each of the political party leaders, to congratulate them on a hard fight and to ask for their continuing contribution to the national pool of ideas. He said he told the executive director of his own DPP that while the party must now bear responsibility for governing, as the largest parliamentary party, it must do so "humbly and in a low key"--"to listen more and say less." This is a man who understands victory.

The second idea, "stability," is linked to the first, "inclusion," for Taiwan's stability, said Chen, must be based upon the inclusion of all Taiwan's citizens, former mainlanders, native-born Taiwanese and aboriginals. But there is more. Stability, he said, also will be pursued in the "cross Straits" policy, which has not changed. Chen's desire for positive relations with the mainland has never changed, he said. Far from wanting hostilities, Chen said his hope was for the 2 leaders, the PRC's President Jiang Zemin and himself, to shake hands. He stated that the mainland's hostility towards Taiwan and the DPP arose because PRC leaders didn't know him. He, however, would continue to try to better relations with the PRC and "hoped Taiwan could be a [democratic] lighthouse for the mainland."

That sentiment should be reassuring to U.S. policymakers who sometimes aver that given a free hand, Taiwan would seek to pit the U.S. against the PRC, to try to gain its independence. Chen Shui-bian's message to the mainland is, however, much more affirmative, and much more realistic. The DPP's legislative success augurs well for Taiwan. "Inclusion" and "stability" will build firm foundations. We will watch eagerly as President Chen guides the new parliament. He has started well.