Taipei Times: The `Jakarta Post' published a front-page story about President Chen Shui-bian's (
Joseph Wu (
After the media learned about the president's scheduled visit, they took on a negative angle in their reports and depicted the visit as a "surprise diplomatic attack" or a "sneak visit." I have to repeat that the media took the totally wrong approach, because the three-day visit went through deliberations involving both countries' top officials, even the security arrangements were confirmed several times. The Indonesian government also assured a head-of-state reception and treatment for President Chen.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Prior to the departure, I told President Chen that if the visit was leaked by the local media, all the plans and the itinerary should be aborted immediately and both governments should deny everything. It didn't occur to me that it was the Indonesian press that leaked the information less than 24 hours before the president's departure. Even the president asked me, "why would this happen?"
I think that if there was a flaw in crisis management or damage control, it was that we didn't take into account a possible leak by the Indonesian side. So, after our emergency meeting on Dec. 14, we [Taiwanese officials] and those who were involved on the Indonesian side maintained that the visit should be carried out as scheduled, because it was difficult to accept that three months of planning was destroyed in the blink of an eye.
That is why we didn't call the whole thing off in the first place -- as originally planned -- and reveal the details to the press until two days later. The local media criticized and questioned the whole plan. This part should be improved in the future.
TT: The vice president attributed the media's criticism of this undertaking to the defeatist mind-set harbored by diplomatic officials from the previous administration. Do you think that such a mind-set still prevails in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the media since the DPP administration took office?
Wu: I had frequent interaction with the foreign ministry when I was still in academia. But I wouldn't have contacts with those officials who held the attitude of "the less one does, the fewer mistakes one would make." These pessimists were convinced that Taiwan's diplomatic efforts were destined to fail because of pressure from China. The mind-set of a number of diplomats stationed in overseas representative offices is that the president's overseas visits cause too much hassle and are provocative to China and that they would have to clean up the mess afterward, regardless of whether the visit was pulled off.
I think that the operation of the diplomatic services would be the same no matter which political party takes power or who is elected president. In the former administration, then president Lee Teng-hui (
But the current opponents, especially those who have served in the diplomatic services, persisted in saying the government's foreign policies are doomed. This has amounted to internal resistance to the government's conduct in diplomatic affairs.
TT: You have mentioned that the friendship between two countries, which has been established by high-level interaction during the negotiation processes, will not be affected by the incident, but Indonesia's Sri Sultan, the governor of Yogyaksrta province, revealed the information to the `Jakarta Post,' and the foreign minister told reporters that Taiwan's president is not welcome to visit Indonesia. How does our government explain this?
Wu: We still believe that the reason why the Sultan would reveal the details of Chen's visit was because he was proud that Chen was going to visit. The Sultan is not experienced in diplomatic affairs and he lacks an awareness of the risks. He didn't know that China would give Indonesia so much trouble and express so much opposition to the visit. So we are not blaming the Sultan.
However, as for the rude remarks from Indonesia's Foreign Minister, we believe one of the main reasons for that was because he was angry that he had been kept out of the loop of the secret arrangements for Chen's private visit and didn't take part in preparations. But the more important reason why he didn't help is because he is a pro-China politician who used the opportunity to talk tough to show that he was strong and to please Chinese.
On the surface, the official relationship between Taiwan and Indonesia will definitely slip back into a deadlock because of the rude remarks. The main impact will be on Taiwan's "Go South" policy, which encourages Taiwanese business to go into Southeast Asian countries. This will have to be adjusted. Originally, President Chen prepared to personally lead the government and private sectors to march into Indonesia to develop large-scale business and foreign trade projects. But now the government has to stop all of its plans. The original plan, which sees Indonesia as a priority country, must be temporarily stopped.
But I also have to stress that the government will not stop any businessman who still wants to invest in Indonesia for his own private reasons. It will only affect plans for government-backed industrial zones and development projects.
Unless Indonesia is willing to send a high-ranking government official -- one who is higher in rank than the foreign minister -- to express regret, privately or publicly to clearly express that the comment from the foreign minister does not represent Indonesia's policy, then official relations will continue to be deadlocked. I believe that Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Presidential Office will use their private channels to let the Indonesian government know what we expect.
TT: Over the past year, these kinds of diplomatic plans, which fail at the last moment, have been attempted several times. You have been involved in these efforts, what is your feeling about your experiences?
Wu: It's fortunate that most of those diplomats who have a defeatist attitude have retired. I have been a government official for 10 months and my frequent contacts with officials from MOFA have been smooth. And almost all MOFA leaders are energetic and are bravely trying to achieve breakthroughs. We want the country's foreign-affairs system to charge forward and test the limits -- to find real diplomatic space.
The limit is not the limit. We want to encourage those energetic diplomats to find the real limits of Taiwan's diplomatic space. In every place, along every diplomatic line, we should ask the whole system to test and try the limits. Then we can really know how big we can make Taiwan's diplomatic space. The private visit to Indonesia is one of those tests, and while it wasn't successful, from a certain point of view the communications and exchanges that came during the negotiation process were much deeper than anything we had created before.
I believe that such a situation can be expanded to be used in other areas in other countries. We will never stop trying to carry out presidential diplomatic visits to countries which are not our allies.
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