Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) came close to losing both his job and possibly his head after denying that President Chen Shiu-bian (陳水扁) was planning to visit Indonesia last week.
"The president will remain in Taiwan Tuesday [Dec. 17] through Saturday and if he takes a trip to Indonesia as reported, I will have my head come off," Wu said.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
He made the remarks, accompanied by a denial the trip was being planned from Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (
Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Shih-meng (
The secretary-general's remarks embarrassed Wu, who had arranged the trip, and opposition law-makers took the opportunity to ask Wu to step down.
"This is the hardest time I've had since I took the post as the deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office," Wu told the Taipei Times, adding that, for the first time, he had to lie to the press and ask his wife to help him shun calls from reporters.
"I fell foul of many reporter friends," Wu said.
The former academic specializing in international affairs said he now realizes what a difficult situation Taiwan's diplomats face. These representatives, Wu said, must not only fight China on the international political stage, but must also be careful in dealing with the media, the opposition parties and pro-China bureaucrats.
"When I was an academic, I was entrusted by the government to collect information, analyze what had happened in the past and offer my advice, and it was not my business whether the advice would be carried out," he said. "But now I am a government official -- everything I am doing is related to the future and every decision I make will affect the development of the state."
Wu admits he will have to change how he deals with the media, adding that must know when to shut his mouth and when to pretend nothing has happened.
As a senior political observer, Wu enjoyed a good relationship with both the DPP and the KMT and was a popular news commentator due to his non-partisan and outspoken character.
A senior official from the National Security Council (
"During the KMT regime, the government was short of a powerful and complete individual to fight China's official media," the official said. "Wu was believed to be a good bridge between Taiwan and the international community with strong knowledge of Taiwanese society, mainly because he is practical and non-partisan."
When former Presidential Office secretary-general Eugene Chien was selected to take over as minister of foreign affairs in the Cabinet reshuffle in January, Wu was put in charge of international affairs at the Presidential Office.
Since then, he has arranged four trips for President Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). The trips are: Lu's trip to attend the conference of Liberal International in Europe in March, the president's trip to Africa in early July, Lu's surprise trip to Indonesia in August and first lady Wu Shu-chen's (吳淑珍) visit to Washington in September.
Wu said arranging trips to countries without official ties with Taiwan has shown him the importance President Chen's efforts to bring Taiwan to the world.
In early September, Wu began to make arrangements for the president to visit Indonesia. After more than three months of negotiations and within hours of Chen's planned departure departure, the Presidential Office was forced to cancel the secretly arranged trip because the Indonesian media had gone public with its details.
Wu admitted that it is hard for him to accept the outcome but added that many officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Office must be feeling the same profound disappointment and be forced to endure the same criticism from the media and the public.
"But I truly believe this is the right direction," Wu said. "No matter who will be president and which party will take over the regime, they all need to follow the same route."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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