Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday disapproved of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) strategy to suggest the leaders’ meeting in the APEC forum as an occasion to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Whether Taiwan’s president is able to be present at an APEC summit is not only contingent on China, but also on a decision by all APEC members, Lee said.
Lee made the remarks in Taipei yesterday in response to reporters’ questions about the possibility that Ma might meet with Xi at this year’s APEC summit to be hosted in Beijing.
Photo: CNA
Since APEC began to hold its informal leaders’ meeting in 1993, Taiwan has never sent its president to the summit, instead sending representatives to act as envoys.
Lee said he perceived it to be more important that Taiwan focuses on raising its economic stature so that all APEC members would invite Taiwan’s president to attend APEC summit rather than focusing on China’s opposition to a Taiwanese leader’s participation.
Meanwhile, Lee again addressed the rumor that he had sought to meet with then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) at sea when he was president.
The idea of him meeting with Jiang was suggested by Evergreen Group founder Chang Yung-fa (張榮發), who said that such a meeting could take place on an Evergreen ship because the group was planning to build a wharf as its base in China, Lee said.
Lee said he rejected Chang’s idea to his face, partly because Chang’s motivation was to make more profits for Evergreen Group in China and partly because Jiang, responsible for firing missiles off Taiwan’s coast in 1995 and 1996 (known as the Taiwan Strait missile crisis) had “never been nice to Taiwan.”
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
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CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but