Monglia trip for tranport minister likely to irk China

Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san is to visit Mongolia, a trip expected to antagonize Beijing, an official said yesterday.

Lin, the highest ranking Taiwan government official to visit Mongolia, will lead a group on Thursday for a six-day visit, an official at the transport ministry told reporters.

But he played down the significance of the visit and declined to provide details of the visit.

A Chinese-language daily said Lin would discuss chartered flights with Mongolian officials during his trip.

China never misses the chance to express opposition to official overseas visits by politicians from Taiwan even if the visit is to a country which recognizes Beijing's government rather than Taipei's, as is the case with Mongolia.

The daily said that once the planned chartered flights to Mongolia were fixed, it would help promote tourism and investment there since flights between the two countries would be slashed from eight to five hours.

"The cost of introducing workers from Mongolia would also be lowered," it said.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has suggested that the domestic labor market be opened to workers from Mongolia and Myanmar as Taipei tries to diversify its labor force, already bolstered by 300,000 Indonesian, Philippine, Thai and Vietnamese workers, following a series of industrial disputes.

It has been tentatively decided that Taiwan's Far East Air Transport Co would provide chartered flight services. Chen traveled to the country in 1999.

Some 5,000 Taiwanese travel to Mongolia each year.

Ties between Taipei and Ulan Bator improved dramatically earlier this year after Taipei authorities revised the laws governing Taiwan-China relations and removed claims that Mongolia was part of Chinese territory "to comply with international realities," according to foreign minister Eugene Chien (簡又新).