Former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui, who died on Thursday aged 97, was dubbed “Mr Democracy” for burying autocratic rule in favour of freewheeling pluralism, and thrived on defying China’s drive to absorb an island it regards as a wayward province.

Lee 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’,” he said.

Lee’s greatest act of defiance was becoming Taiwan’s first democratically elected president in March 1996, achieved with a landslide following eight months of intimidating war games and missile tests by China in waters around the island.

Those events brought China and Taiwan to the verge of conflict, prompting the US to send a carrier task force to the area.