Taiwan's delegation to the annual meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum said yesterday it will keep track of talks between top US and Chinese leaders to be held in the Brunei capital next week.
US President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) will travel to oil-rich Brunei over the weekend for the Nov. 15 to Nov. 16 APEC informal leadership meeting, where they are also scheduled to hold closed-door bilateral talks.
As this will be Clinton's last attendance at the APEC summit before ending his presidential stint in January 2001, Taiwan is wary of the possibility of Clinton making any promises unfavorable or detrimental to Taiwan to Jiang during their upcoming face-to-face talks in the tiny oil-rich sultanate.
A spokesman for the Taiwan delegation said the mission will keep a close watch on the Nov. 16 Clinton-Jiang meeting whose agenda is expected to include issues related to the Korean peninsula, arms proliferation ban, China's human rights records and its entry to the WTO.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (
Andrew Hsia (
Lin met with his Brunei counterpart yesterday afternoon for wide-ranging talks.
He is scheduled to meet with trade ministers from the US, Australia and other major APEC countries in the next few days to seek their support for Taiwan's early accession to the WTO.
A two-day APEC senior officials meeting opened here yesterday to prepare for the forum's annual ministerial-level meeting and leadership meeting.
Hsia represented Taiwan at the senior officials meeting.
Hsia said the APEC senior officials were discussing the blueprint for a declaration on economic growth to be issued at the end of the week-long annual APEC conferences next Thursday.
According to Hsia, the Taiwan delegate to the APEC summit, Central Bank of China Governor Perng Fai-nan (
President Chen Shui-bian (
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