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.”
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
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Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
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