NEW YORK -- Taiwan will hold an election Saturday to choose members of the national Parliament, mayors and county magistrates. The outcome will have a lasting impact on Taiwan's future -- in particular on its relationship with China.

Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan's former president, is in the thick of it. Lee, though 80 years old and suffering from a heart condition, is touring the island campaigning for parliamentary candidates of the Taiwan Solidarity Alliance, a party formed recently to spread his ideas and to solidify President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party-led government.

This is a radical change in Lee's lifestyle. Just a year and half ago he eagerly looked forward to a leisurely retirement life serving as a missionary to Taiwan's indigenous people and doing DNA research and work for nongovernment organizations. The change is precipitated by his fear that his legacies, indeed, the future of Taiwan, are being threatened by China's supporters -- both in Taiwan and on the mainland.

Democratization/Taiwanization is Lee's first and foremost legacy. His success in transforming Taiwan from a dictatorship of the Nationalist Party (KMT) into a thriving democracy was a miracle. Alone, powerless and confronted by powerful KMT enemies -- mainlanders who migrated to Taiwan with Gen. Chiang Kai-shek after 1949, the armed forces, the secret police and the government -- Lee turned to the people, namely ordinary native Taiwanese, for support.

Through national-policy conferences, the use of his powers as head of the KMT and the Republic of China, cooperation with the DPP and grassroots appeal, Lee engineered many reforms, including the direct election of legislators, the president and the vice president.

Lee's second legacy is determining Taiwan's relationship with China. Legally ending the civil war in 1991, Lee defined China and Taiwan as two separate political entities, with the former exercising control over the Chinese mainland but not over Taiwan, and the latter over Taiwan but not over China, thus ending "the one-China myth."

He protected Taiwan's sovereignty, dignity, equality and security, opposing China's "one China -- one country, two systems" principle under which Beijing is the central government and Taipei a subordinate provincial government. Pressed by Beijing, Lee in July 1999 had no choice but to declare that Taiwan's relationship with China is "a special state-to-state relationship."

Space constraints permit only a listing of Lee's other legacies: building Taiwan into an economic powerhouse and integrating it with the global economy, and raising Taiwan's international activity space and status.

Lee took great pride in the first peaceful transfer of power in China's 4,000-year history. He had faith in President Chen, but little did he expect that things would deteriorate so badly in a year and half. Taiwan in 2001 had the worst economic decline in half a century. Gross domestic product and stock and real estate prices plummeted and unemployment hit 5.2 percent by late summer.

While the global recession and Taiwan's industrial structure -- which is overly dependent on the information-technology industry and on exports to the United States -- are the main causes, political instability under the Chen government should share the blame.

Chen has been forced to relax controls on investments in China and on communications and transportation links with the mainland even as Lee's legacies have been stymied by Beijing's relentless efforts to isolate and contain Taiwan internationally. Lee is driven to return to the political foray by the fear that his first two legacies and Taiwan's future face grave internal and external threats.

Once Lee resigned from the KMT presidency in late March 2000, the Chinese mainlanders in Taiwan cornered Lien Chan, Lee's successor, and succeeded in recapturing the KMT, which they had lost to Lee in 1988, greatly reducing the power of the mostly Taiwanese supporters of Lee. Even worse, Lien and the KMT, instead of advancing the public interest, has formed an alliance with the People First Party of James Soong -- a China-born ex-governor who fought Lee and split from the KMT -- and with the New Party, mostly mainlanders who split from the KMT in 1993 because of opposition to Lee's democratization and Taiwanization policy.

The new alliance's sole purpose seems to lie in disrupting Chen's programs and legislative agenda, defeating the public welfare legislation, cutting the government budgets to the bare bone and forcing Chen to reconsider building a fourth nuclear power plant.

Worst of all, they have paralyzed the government by disruptive attempts to "recall" Chen. Through it all, Chen and the DPP have been helpless because, while the president has the power to appoint the premier, the DPP is a minority in the 225-seat legislature with less than one-third of the seats (66).

Chen, Lee's successor, has pursued a middle-of-the-road policy, modifying the DPP's "Taiwan independence" party platform, showing infinite good will toward China (pledging not to declare Taiwan's independence and other steps if China renounced the use of force), promising to begin economic and cultural integration with the aim toward eventual political integration (although after the European Union model) and calling for the resumption of dialogue. China has, however, adamantly refused, demanding that Chen surrender to Beijing's "one China" principle.

Despite his good will and flexibility, Chen has rejected Beijing's demand. Moreover, recently there has been a distinct change in his posture. On Oct. 20, Chen lashed out at China's haughty rejection of Taiwan's delegate to attend the informal APEC forum summit meeting in Shanghai and criticized as barbaric the Chinese foreign minister's extremely rude treatment of Taiwan's minister of economics at the conference.

One very ominous new phenomenon is China's recent tactics of forming a united front with the three opposition parties in Taiwan (KMT, TEP and NP) and with interest groups to isolate, encircle and contain Chen and Taiwan. Opposition party leaders and their proxies -- legislators, former KMT generals and admirals and business tycoons -- travel to Beijing frequently and do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government against Taiwan -- actions that could be considered treason.

Lee has lashed out against those CCP fellow-travelers as "allying with the Chinese communists against Taiwan."

As stated earlier, the Taiwan Solidarity Alliance was formed for spreading Lee's political philosophy and for solidifying the Chen government. Lee is not a TSA member, but is its spiritual guru. The TSA's four-point slogan well summarizes what it stands for: stabilize politics, stimulate the economy, strengthen democracy, and enhance Taiwan. It is Lee's belief that only when parliamentary politics is stabilized can the economy grow, democracy flourish and Taiwan become strong and secure.

Lee's dream is to see the TSA win 30 seats, and the DPP 85 seats in the coming election, in turn inducing 30 pro-Lee legislators to leave the KMT, further splitting the party. A more realistic estimate is the TSA will win 15 seats and the DPP 80 seats. To win a majority in the 225-seat legislature, the Lee-Chen coalition will have to attract 18 independents and pro-Lee KMT legislators.

Regardless of the outcome, the election will result in a shift in the political party balance of power. The DPP might become the largest party for the first time. The KMT is expected to lose its majority and might even drop to No. 2 after the DPP. The People First Party is slated to increase its seats and the New Party to lose, becoming a marginal existence.

If the TSA, the DPP and pro-Lee KMT legislators can win more than 113 seats, the Chen government will be able to carry out its policy and legislative agenda and pursue a more confident policy toward China. Their huge loss and a big win by opposition parties, however, will be disastrous for the Lee-Chen coalition and for Taiwan. Chen will become a lame-duck president. Pro-China political and business forces will gain strength, hastening China's devouring of the island.

In Lee's eyes, no less than Taiwan's survival is at stake. He has declared that the importance of Saturday's election equals that of the 1905 Japanese-Russian naval battle in the Sea of Japan at which the survival of Japan was at stake.

Lee, expelled by the KMT this past summer for supporting the TSA and the DPP, no longer has the trappings of power. All he has are his convictions, his legacies, his reputation and his prestige at home and abroad, which remains considerable. A tall, straight-standing 80-year-old statesman -- not an opinion-poll-driven politician -- with a voice and oratory that can inspire generals and politicians as well as the masses, Lee is Taiwan's "philosopher king."

He is a statesman whose beliefs will never die. No wonder China is afraid of him. Lee may still pull off another miracle for Taiwan on Saturday.