Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) joined US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and 97 others on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, the weekly announced on Sunday.
Chen appeared in the most influential "Leaders and Revolutionaries" category. Others on this list included US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former US president Bill Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
In the article introducing the president, Time wrote that Chen, born to a poor family in 1951, "symbolizes Taiwan's transition from Chiang Kai-shek's (
The Taiwan Strait is sometimes called the most dangerous place in the world, the magazine said.
Having narrowly won a second four-year term last year after surviving an assassination attempt, Chen, 54, will remain in office until 2008, the report said.
Beijing can't stand him, the magazine said. China's leaders call him a "splittist" determined to break Taiwan away from China for good. At times, Chen's rhetoric seems excessive, even in Taiwan's boisterous democracy. Voters denied him a victory in legislative elections last December, preferring parties that seek a greater accommodation with China, and since then, Chen has deliberately reached out to Beijing, the report said.
Chen's overtures, however, have not been received with obvious rapture; last month China passed a law reiterating its willingness to use force should Taiwan declare formal independence, the article said.
Time further wrote that though Chen summoned a million people into the streets on March 26 to protest that law, don't rule out the possibility that he may yet make a deal with Beijing.
"I am a maker of history," Chen told Time, last year.
"If that turns out to be so, let's hope it's because Chen Shui-bian proves to be a force for reconciliation across the Taiwan Strait, not for war over it," the report concluded.
This edition of Time magazine was set to hit newsstands yesterday.
Responding to Time magazine's inclusion of Chen in its list, Presidential Office spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗) said yesterday that Chen's relentless efforts to serve the country have been universally recognized.
Chen Wen-tsung, director-general of the Presidential Office Department of Public Affairs, said that since Chen took office, he has done all he can to further reforms and seek inter-party reconciliation.
He has made numerous goodwill overtures toward China to try to secure cross-strait peace and allow Taiwan to stand tall in the international community with dignity, the spokesman said.
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