TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A new book by former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) failed to mention that new Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) once beat him up, resulting in a three-day hospital stay, reports said Tuesday (Feb. 20).

Chen appeared at the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) on Tuesday to present a book based on interviews. The Academia Historia Office spent six years and conducted 46 conversations before publishing the 600,000-character volume, per UDN.

Asked why he had not mentioned the incident with Han, Chen said clashes were difficult to avoid in those days. His stay in the hospital only amounted to “pediatrics,” he said.

In the early 1990s, he was the first convener of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to have emerged from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while Han was a KMT lawmaker. At the time, the legislators stuck to a formula of clashes leading to compromise followed by progress, Chen said.

The former president said he would offer his book to President-elect Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), as they could learn lessons from it. After his inauguration on May 20, Lai will face an opposition larger than the DPP camp at the Legislative Yuan, as he did when he was president, Chen said.