the first successful example of democratic elections in the long history of Chinese societies

The following is a paper from a paper by Nobuyuki Yoshida, former Chief of the Taipei Bureau, published in the Sankei Shimbun yesterday, titled Mr. Lee, 'Let's Clearly say things to China' and 'attitudes that Japan should take as a lesson.
I was posted to Taipei as a correspondent shortly after the Gulf War outbreak in January 1991.
Three years had already passed since Lee Teng-hui succeeded Chiang Ching-Kuo as president.
At that time, however, there was still Mr. Song Jiang, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, in Taiwan, and he reigned as a symbol of a foreigner from the continent.
The President of the Executive Yuan (equivalent to the Prime Minister) was Hau Pei-tsun, a foreigner from the military, who stayed quiet without upset. It was not so much a Taiwanese thing as it was a literal "Republic of China-Esque" era.　
Lee Teng-hui's most significant accomplishment was to upend this ROC-style society, that is, the snarky post-war structure in which the 10 percent or so of the foreign population ruled over 85 percent of the Taiwanese people, by using the ballot paper rather than ammunition.　
His direct election as president in 1996, described as the first in Taiwan, was the first successful example of democratic elections in the long history of Chinese societies, including mainland China and Singapore, that have still not been realized elsewhere. The achievement of transforming the impossible into the possible in Chinese society, which has experienced the only dictatorship, has severe implications for the future of Chinese society.　
This article continues.