Taiwan laid to rest on Wednesday former president Lee Teng-hui, dubbed “Mr Democracy” for burying autocratic rule in favour of freewheeling pluralism and defying Beijing’s drive to absorb an island it regards part of its sovereign territory. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen attended the state funeral held at a military cemetery in the mountains outside the capital, Taipei. Lee, who died in July aged 97 , was president from 1988 to 2000. A memorial service for Lee was held last month in the shadow of renewed war games by the People’s Liberation Army, as was his election as Taiwan’s first democratic leader. The election in March 1996 was Lee’s greatest act of defiance, achieved in a landslide following eight months of intimidating drills and missile tests by China in waters around the island. Those events brought the mainland and Taiwan to the verge of conflict, prompting the United States to send an aircraft carrier task force to the area in a warning to the Beijing government. Lee, a devout Christian, said at a 2012 election rally that he hoped for Taiwan to be “a country of democracy, freedom, human rights and dignity, where one does not have to be ruled by others and where everyone can say out loud ‘I’m Taiwanese’.”
