As president, Lee Teng-hui vigorously promoted the notion of "pragmatic diplomacy." Lin Cheng-yi, director of the Institute of European and American Studies at the Academia Sinica explains that Lee Teng-hui's foreign affairs philosophy is founded on "the fact of Taiwan's existence," and the idea that "where there's existence there's hope," so striking down Beijing's claim that the ROC ceased to exist from 1949.
李登輝上任以來，大力推動「務實外交」，中央研究院歐美研究所所長林正義指出，李總統的外交信念是以「台灣存在的事實」及「存在就有希望」為信念，「立刻衝擊到中共認定的中華民國自一九四九年就不存在的主張」，他說。