The former director of the Presidential Office, Su Chih-cheng (蘇志誠) admitted yesterday that he served as a secret cross-strait envoy for former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Su's revelation followed a news report that claimed there were a series of talks held between the two sides, which paved the way for the historic meeting between the two sides in 1993.
The China Times reported that Nan Huai-chin (
Nan has consented to the release of photos that show Su meeting with Chinese envoys, including Beijing's top cross-strait negotiator Wang Daohan (
He also offered to reveal more information that would detail the nine meetings between envoys from both sides.
The newspaper also revealed that Cheng Su-ming (
She said yesterday that the earlier meetings "had really helped stabilize cross-strait relations."
Both were confidants of former President Lee and both had previously denied speculation regarding the secret talks held between 1988 and 1992.
Su admitted to paving the way to the first ever cross-strait talks held in Singapore in 1993, between China's Wang Daohan and his Taiwanese counterpart Koo Chen-fu (
"I raised the suggestion of having Koo-Wang talks in the hopes of institutionalizing exchanges between the two sides," Su said.
The reports said that in January, 1998, Beijing had instructed a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Jia Yibin (
Nan relayed a message to Taiwan that the then Chinese President Yang Shangkun (
Nan then helped arrange three meetings with secret Chinese envoys.
Wang, from China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), met with Su in June 1991, when both sides set the date of the first ever cross-strait talks as April 1993.
The New Party said on Wednesday that Lee should make public the records of the nine secret meetings and the list of all secret envoys.
It was a former New Party lawmaker Yok Mu-ming (
"We hope President Chen Shui-bian
Feng accused Lee of deceiving the PRC into thinking that he was anti-KMT in exchange for stability in cross-strait relations.
"According to my sources, Lee had told the PRC that he would topple the KMT if the Communists didn't like the party," Feng said.
Secretary-General of the Presidential Office Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said in a press release yesterday that the new government would never use secret envoys in cross-strait dialogue and declined to comment on the operations of the previous government.
"I am not against cross-strait contacts but formal mechanisms for dialogue cannot be replaced by informal channels," he said.
In Beijing, Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen (
"Secret contact is a kind of contact ... it's nothing to be ashamed of, nor a black box operation," Qian said.
He declined to say whether Taiwan's new government has sent secret emissaries and said "even if they have, I would not be at liberty to tell you that."
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS