President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday said that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) will attend APEC's informal leaders' meeting in his place, because of his desire not to put South Korea in a difficult diplomatic situation.
Even though Chen had several times expressed the hope of joining the APEC summit on Nov. 18 and 19, his request was rejected by South Korea early last month.
Chen told special South Korean envoy Yun Hai-jung that he didn't want to vex the South Korean government or President Roh Moo-hyun if there were difficulties in granting the request, despite stressing that he had the right to take part in the meeting.
"Taiwan's participation in the APEC summit should be no different from other members. If I am unable to attend, it would be with great regret, and it would discriminate against the 23 million people of Taiwan," Chen said.
Chen said that the Chinese government had no right to decide whether he could attend the summit or not, and had no right to vet Taiwan's representative.
The US, which supports Taiwan's participation in the APEC summit, responded positively to Chen's actions, saying it was a "creative move" to send the legislative speaker, Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General James Huang (黃志芳) said.
In line with long-established protocol, the 2005 APEC summit organizing committee sent a special envoy to Taipei in July to forward an invitation to Chen.
While APEC is one of the few international organizations that admit both Taipei and Beijing, the president has been unable to attend previous APEC informal meetings because of opposition from Beijing.
Lee Yuan-tseh (
"As Lee has modestly declined to the president on account of his attendance in previous years, Chen decided to name another person to be his envoy," Huang said.
Chen said Wang had agreed to attend the summit, which is to be held in Busan, South Korea, in November.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun praised Wang as a suitable delegate.
"As a speaker of the Legislative Yuan, the highest representative body in the nation, Wang reflects a majority of public opinion. He is also an experienced politician and very respectable person," Yu said.
Meanwhile, Wang yesterday said he was duty bound to represent Chen if everything was "appropriately arranged," and that he would report to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at an "appropriate time." He said that Chen asked him to consider representing him in August.
Wang yesterday hesitated to specify whether he was willing to take up the job, but said that anybody should be happy to make a contribution to the country when the opportunity arises.
Wang said he believed Ma would "respect the nation's overall interest," and added that the official invitation extended by the host country yesterday was just the beginning of the matter, and that the Presidential Office would inform Ma of the arrangements when the time is right.
In response, Ma said he did not know of the news until yesterday morning.
"I will discuss the issue with Wang, and inform the public about my decision after I understand the whole situation," he told reporters yesterday after receiving a group of visiting Republicans from the US.
Asked if he felt slighted that Chen did not inform him about the news before asking Wang to attend APEC, Ma said "of course" he did.
"But President Chen has always been like this. He always announces things as he pleases," he said.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih and Ko Shu-ling
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS