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Former Taiwanese President Tours Cornell

Lee Teng-hui, former president of Taiwan, waves to supporters as he leaves the campus Thursday, June 28. Photo by AP.

Protesters rally in plaza

By William Kates/AP

Returning to his alma mater, Cornell University, for a relaxing, grandfatherly visit, former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui received a raucous welcome from a crowd of nearly 500 well-wishers — as well as protests the next day from over 200 Chinese American students.

Supporters drove from as far away as Maryland and Washington on June 26 to greet Lee, dubbed “Mr. Democracy” by his countrymen and heralded for his firm stance on Taiwanese sovereignty. Lee spent about five minutes shaking hands in the crowd.

“It’s very special to Taiwanese in this country. He brought democracy to our country. He is our George Washington,” said Ren Egawa, a member of the Taiwanese American Association of Philadelphia, who drove four hours for a chance to see his country’s first elected president.

A protester, who preferred to not be named, cheers during a Chinese Alliance for the Unification of China rally on the Cornell University campus Wednesday, June 27. Photo by AP.

A day later, however, Chinese students from Cornell and other upstate New York campuses, as well as supporters from New York City and Washington, D.C., gathered outside the student union to denounce Lee’s visit and the university’s decision to name a research center in his honor.

“Lee gives Cornell money, but money is not everything. Cornell should have principles. Cornell should have morals,” said John Chen, a Temple University math professor and president of the Global Chinese Alliance for the Unification of China.

“Naming a building after such an evil man is insulting,” said Chen.

On June 27, the university announced the establishment of the Lee Teng-hui Institute for Scientific Research, which will study material science and nanotechnology.

“If Cornell wants to name a building after him, we are not happy, but there is not much we can do about it,” said Aijun Nie, a spokesperson for Cornell’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association, which petitioned for Cornell administrators to drop its plan.

“We are here today to protest against Lee’s separatist ideas. We are here to show our strong will and make our voices heard,” Nie said.

Later, protesters marched across campus to where Lee was eating in a sound-proofed room in the music building. They stood outside the building shouting, but Lee already had left the building, escorted by security staff through a back exit.

Lee, a 1968 Cornell graduate, served as Taiwan’s first elected president from 1988 until last year, when his party was defeated in presidential elections. He is credited with presiding over Taiwan’s generally peaceful shift from authoritarianism to democracy, but many accuse him of being too tolerant of corruption during his 12 years in office. Lee has remained a headline-maker and is still one of the island’s most influential political figures.

Under Lee, relations between China and Taiwan were at times tumultuous. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing says the two sides must eventually reunify or face war.

Lee returned to Cornell for three days to visit his granddaughter, an undergraduate student taking summer courses. He scheduled no public appearances but attended several private events.

On Wednesday, Lee toured Kroch Library to view items in Cornell’s Asian collections and archives and the library’s other holdings, including one of five existing handwritten copies of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He also received a briefing on Cornell’s current research efforts and took a virtual tour of the $63 million engineering building that will house the institute.

Henrik N. Dullea, Cornell’s vice president for university relations, said Cornell was not concerned about the diplomatic impact of Lee’s visit.

“We have been consistent over the years. We are treating Dr. Lee as we would any distinguished alumni. He was an excellent student and has become an acknowledged scholar,” Dullea said. “Others may feel differently, but it is his right as an individual to come back.”

At a luncheon, Lee said the research conducted at his institute “will develop not only new, but ethical technologies, ones that benefit world peace and further human progress, including the creation of new materials that are less polluting for the earth.”

As Lee dined, protesters chanted, sang songs and listened to speakers for nearly an hour. Nie read a protest letter sent to Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and signed by Chinese student groups from more than a dozen upstate New York colleges, as well as Purdue, Rutgers, Harvard universities and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The letter accused Lee of using Cornell “for the purpose of his political propaganda” to divide China and prevent its reunification with Taiwan.