Taiwan's President Steps Down

Taiwan's president resigned as leader of the ruling Nationalist Party on Friday, becoming the biggest victim of the opposition's stunning upset in Taiwan's presidential elections.

Since the party's humiliating defeat in Saturday's election, protesters have demonstrated outside the Nationalists' headquarters, demanding that President Lee Teng-hui resign immediately as party chairman.

Lee, who has led Taiwan for 12 years, had offered to step down in September. Then on Thursday, he told party leaders he would resign Friday.

Vice President Lien Chan, who finished a distant third in the presidential vote, was to serve as the party's acting chairman.

Although the media dubbed Lee "Mr. Democracy" because he presided over Taiwan's democratic reforms, he ruled his party like an authoritarian. His critics were forced out or driven to the margins of the party.

Shelley Rigger, a political science professor at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., said Lee's solid victory in Taiwan's first direct election in 1996 seemed to have made him overconfident about his leadership.

By silencing or forcing out most of his opponents, Lee also lacked people who could point out mistakes that he was making, Rigger said.

"He lost his grip on reality," she said.

The Nationalist Party was able to secure its power after 38 years of martial law rule ended in 1987, mainly because of the drastic step Lee took to "Taiwanize" the party.

The Nationalists' hierarchy was once dominated by party members who fled China when the communists took over the mainland in 1949. But now the party's leadership consists mainly of Taiwan natives like Lee.

Eventually, the mainlanders, who had opposed Lee's "Taiwanization," brought him down as party leader with their raucous protests demanding that he resign after Saturday's defeat.

News of the unraveling of the powerful Nationalist Party has attracted as much attention as President-elect Chen Shui-bian's meeting with former U.S. congressman Lee Hamilton, an unofficial envoy for President Clinton.

The two met for about an hour Thursday, but both declined to discuss their talks. Hamilton said he would release a statement when he ends his two-day trip on Friday afternoon.

Chen's election victory caused concern in Washington that his administration could increase tensions with China. Beijing has made it clear it distrusts Chen, whose Democratic Opposition Party supports independence for Taiwan.

Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since the communists seized the mainland amid civil war in 1949. Beijing demands reunification, and has threatened to attack if the island tries to split away for good.