Newsmakers: Chen's reticent choice for APEC

The 78-year-old former vice president, Li Yuan-zu (李元簇), who resides in Miaoli County and lives "like a hermit" -- as some have said -- would not likely have considered returning to the media spotlight after stepping down from his four-year vice presidential term in 1996.

But when the Presidential Office announced last week that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) tapped Li to attend the upcoming APEC summit in Shanghai on his behalf, Li once again found himself under the microscope of public scrutiny as a news-hungry public sought details on the little-known scholar-turned-public official.

`A man with no voice'

Li has remained low-key throughout his careers in academia and government. Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who handpicked Li as his vice president in 1990, once described him as "a man with no voice."

"He was a very low-key man who had few social engagements while in government. He worked hard but was very quiet, so he's dubbed as `a man with no voice,'" said Lin Bih-jaw (林碧炤), senior research fellow at the Taiwan Research Institute, who served as deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council under Lee's administration.

Within the international community, Li's name is not as well-known as Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), Taipei's top negotiator with Beijing who attended the APEC summits from 1995 to 1997.

In fact, Lawrence Greenwood, the US State Department's senior official at APEC, went so far as to admit last week that even he didn't know much about Li.

Some critics regard him as a good choice to represent Taiwan at the forthcoming summit, although Taipei has yet to receive the green light from Beijing on his attendance.

Amainlander from the province of Hunan, Li fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war.

He then climbed the academic ladder to earn a doctorate in law in Bonn, Germany before becoming an expert on criminal law and then the president of National Chengchi University.

He was then selected as the minister of education, the minister of justice and finally became Taiwan's vice president.

Lin told some anecdotes about Li during his time at National Chengchi University in the late 1970s, saying that he is a man of discipline.

"On the day when university freshmen began their registration, Li would stand in front of Szuwei Hall (四維堂) where registration took place to warn male students with long hair to have their hair trimmed," Lin said.

"And he would patrol the campus almost every night, and would switch lamps off when he saw it necessary to do so in order to save electricity," Lin said.

Even today when professors from National Chengchi University visit their old president in Miaoli, his advice includes admonitions to save electricity on campus, said Lin, who also teaches at the National Chengchi University.

Goodwill signal

Some also believe Li's background as an ethnic mainlander should be interpreted as a goodwill signal toward Beijing from the president at a time when the cross-strait impasse remains formidable.

Even so, China has thus far kept mum on Li's attendance and it remains to be seen whether Beijing will accept the proposal.

Some also worry that Li's capacity as Taiwan's former vice president may trigger Beijing's rejection of his attendance.

After all, China has never recognized Taiwan's presidents or vice presidents and has reiterated that Taipei's summit representatives should be confined to officials in charge of economic affairs, observers said.