Classy. 
From my favourite state run media, the Global Times.
Chinese mainland netizens also noticed the report. Some said, “What a shame, because we want him to be punished for his treason when we reunify the island.” Others also criticized heavily that Lee “has forgot his own origin, and betrayed his ancestors.”
He is a sinner of the Chinese nation," Yok Mu-ming, honorary president of the New Party of Taiwan, told the Global Times.
My favourite is this one.
As reunification of Taiwan becomes an irreversible trend for the island, separatists like Lee have begun to realize his previous goal of building a “state-to-state relationship” with the mainland has already gone up in smoke, Yang said.
Riggghhtt… Keep telling yourself that 
The trend has been towards suicide unification. Keep tellin yourself that.
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From Singapore:
Guy
I wonder if the hardcore pro-China KMTers will start echoing similar statements in the coming days…was always interesting to have dinner with some family of some friends or just having some tea with some random uncles and aunties and then all of a sudden someone goes off on a tangent about how much better Taiwan used to be and how safe it was (during White Terror period), and cursed Lee for the downfall of Taiwan all whilst cursing Tsai Ying-wen for dividing Taiwan and China, never sure what to say but the irony is too much.
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Godfather of Taiwan secessionism, ha ha. Sounds pretty bad-ass. 
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He did live to see the end of 1C2S of HK.
RIP
Taiwan’s leader of democracy
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Man, I sure can relate. Taiwan is so dangerous these days. You can barely walk down the street in Taipei without getting mugged, even in the middle of the day.
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Which he accurately predicted back in 1996.
In a printed military pamphlet from 1996, LTH says that the transfer of Hong Kong would be the easy part, but to maintain 50 years of autonomy is much harder than one would imagine. As a result, LTH instructed the legislature to enact laws to provide shelter to freedom advocates from Hong Kong if things come down to what we are seeing today.
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Rest in Power, President.
The best snippet on him in English I’ve ever read was in Lee Kuan Yew’s memoir, From Third World to First. LKY didn’t like him at all, it seemed.
Said LDH repeatedly hurled insults at the Chinese leadership because he had no respect for Chinese culture or history, just like any other Japanese elite.
Said he peferred to read Japanese translations of news instead of English originals.
LKY didn’t seem to like Taiwanese people, period, probably due to the fact that the first time he saw Taiwanese people was when they were part of the Japanese army, sent to Singapore to interpret for Hokkien.
Basically portrayed him as a crazy samurai.
But LKY also said the greatest honor he received was being knighted by the Queen. How ironic.
Said nothing–nothing good about Taiwan’s democratization, for obvious reasons.
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He also kinda accurately predicted his death. He implied he would be dead in 5 years in 2015.
Maybe he was a fortune teller on the side lol.
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I think Taiwan was a standing rebuke to LKY’s meme that democracy wasn’t suitable for Asians, who had to be ruled by a self-appointed elite reflecting Confucian values.
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Cherry on top: they are either living high on the hog with government employees’ 18% interest pensions or have lived abroad - mostly US- for up to 30 years without setting foot in Taiwan… except to vote.
As some forumosans have noted, opinions about Lee Teng-hui are sharply divided. Brian Hioe at New Bloom explains why this will likely continue into the foreseeable future:
Guy
He’s probably in some Taiwan-themed Valhalla getting drunk as a monkey on gao liang with three karaoke a-mei’s.
I came to Taiwan at the end of his presidency; he must have been doing something right, because the progress the country had made to that point was pretty damn impressive. He struck me as an unlikeable person, but there’s no doubt he was the right man at the right time. He probably would have been a walking disaster at any other place and time.
There have been lots of places and times!
The man walked through (and survived) Japanese colonial rule, including its unlovely period of high militarism and imperialism; the KMT take-over in Taiwan, including hearing gunshots in Taipei during the February 28 Incident; Taiwan’s grim extended period of White Terror, in which he steadily built up his educational capital in the US, culminating with his PhD from Cornell; the Chiang Ching-kuo period, in which he moved up the KMT ladder before suddenly (and unexpectedly) becoming President of the ROC on Taiwan; the transitional to democracy (for which he most famous) and winning the first open presidential election in 1996; expulsion from the KMT and his subsequent unabashed championing of Taiwan as an independent state.
This was one flexible dude, who made his way through some very tricky historical times, across multiple empires, leaving his mark along the way.
Guy
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A glimpse of some landmark moments in Lee’s career from the 1970s onward appears in this nice photo essay from Focus Taiwan:
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At Current Affairs Taiwan, C Donovan Smith and guest Sean Su discussed Lee Teng-hui and his legacy:
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He was a survivor all right (and a man with a plan, it seems). More Machiavelli than Machiavelli, as someone said back there.
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The Taipei Times editorial page pays tribute to Lee and his accomplishments:
Guy
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The venerable Taiwan independence advocate Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), one of Lee Teng-hui’s contemporaries, pays tribute to Lee:
Guy
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