Veteran Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) participants yesterday spoke out on the government's plan to set up a special task force, led by the National Security Council (NSC), to prepare measures to handle Taiwan's participation in upcoming APEC meetings.
Taiwan will face unusual challenges this year because China is playing host to key meetings in APEC's schedule.
Some veterans said a special task force was unnecessary as any serious fight between Taiwan and China within the regional grouping was extremely unlikely, while others said the NSC's participation might be beneficial.
"I expect the meetings will take place smoothly and I don't expect thorny issues to be raised," said a veteran APEC participant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Another veteran APEC participant from the foreign ministry held a different view.
"We face a special scenario this year [as China is the host], so the NSC's participation might have some advantages," the trade official said. "Cross-strait relations remain quite tense. Officials from Taiwan and China have frequent interactions under APEC and nobody can predict if any sensitive issues will be raised this year.
"But given the liberal rather than dogmatic stance held by some NSC members, I believe the NSC's involvement could be a plus," the trade official added.
Officials said the government did have a draft plan to set up a special NSC-led task force to lead cross-departmental coordination on Taiwan's participation in this year's APEC meetings and that some informal consultations had already began.
But a source from the NSC dismissed the possibility of setting up such a task force. "The foreign ministry is to play the leading role," the source said.
Related internal discussions have not touched upon sensitive issues such as Taiwan's representation at the next APEC leaders' summit as the meeting is simply too far away, officials said.
China has blocked Taiwan's president, vice president and premier from attending any APEC leaders' summit since 1993, when the summit was first held in Seattle.
Meanwhile, officials said that interaction between Taiwanese and Chinese officials -- under the umbrella of APEC -- has improved a great deal over the past few years.
"In the past, Chinese officials blocked some of our proposals because of cross-strait tensions. But over the past year or so we haven't fought. Three years ago I didn't even speak to them, but now we can have a drink or dine together," the foreign ministry official said.
The turning point, the trade official said, was the Malaysia meeting in 1998 when Taiwan and China began to identify their similar stances on certain trade issues while APEC was discussing how to liberalize trade on a sectoral basis, the so-called "Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization."
To sell their similar stances on issues like agricultural matters, "the working-level officials from Taiwan, Japan and China even convened informally every morning before the formal APEC meeting began to discuss how to stage the play together," the trade official said.
The four rounds of APEC's senior officials' meetings (SOMs) this year will be held in Beijing, Shenzhen, Dalian and Shanghai, respectively. The first SOM will be held next month.
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