Singapore sends official to explain cancellation of Wang Jin-pyng's trip

Singapore's representative to Taiwan has briefed Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on the major reasons behind Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's decision to cancel a planned meeting with Wang, legislative sources said yesterday.

Ker Sin Tze, director of the Singapore Trade Office in Taipei, paid a courtesy call on Wang at the latter's residence Friday to explain why Goh and Singaporean Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew had canceled plans to meet Wang during his planned trip to the Southeast Asian city-state, the sources said.

Wang was originally scheduled to visit Singapore and Malaysia from Aug. 11 to Aug. 15. After Ker informed Wang of the Singaporean leaders' decision to cancel their planned meetings with Wang last week, Wang dropped his two-leg overseas travel plan.

Both Ker and Wang remained low-keyed about their meeting. According to previous media reports, the Singaporean leaders had decided to cancel their meeting plans with Wang mainly because of pressure from Beijing.

The reports claimed that Beijing was annoyed by President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) repeated describing of the current state of cross-strait relations as "one state on each side of the strait" and consequently pressured senior Singaporean officials not to engage any influential Taiwan politicians like Wang.

Wang said in private that Beijing's pressure was only one of the factors that had prompted Singaporean leaders to cancel their plans to hold talks with Wang.