By Reuters Staff — Wednesday 7 October 2020
Taiwan laid to rest former President Lee Teng-hui, dubbed “Mr Democracy” for burying autocratic rule in favour of freewheeling pluralism and defying China’s drive to absorb Taiwan. President Tsai Ing-wen attended Lee’s state funeral at a military cemetery in the mountains outside Taipei. Lee, who died in July aged 97, was president from 1988 to 2000. His greatest act of defiance was becoming Taiwan’s first democratically elected president in March 1996, achieved in a landslide following eight months of Chinese war games and missile tests that brought China and Taiwan to the verge of conflict, prompting the US to send an aircraft carrier task force to the area.