While government officials considered Morris Chang's (
Because of China's diplomatic blockade, APEC is one of the few international organizations that Taiwan is able to participate in. However, since 1991, when Taiwan entered the economic forum using the name "Chinese Taipei," APEC has never allowed Taiwanese presidents to attend the leaders' summit. Therefore, how the president's envoy performs at the forum with the other heads of state becomes a focus from Taiwan's perspective.
This year, the president selected Chang, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, to serve as his proxy, a choice described by Foreign Minister James Huang (黃志芳) and other officials in charge of Taiwan's APEC participation as "creative and brilliant."
Although Chang had never previously been involved in political affairs, his performance at the two-day leaders' summit was impressive judging from his frequent and active interactions with US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
But Sophie Chang's performance all but matched that of her husband during the summit as she enjoyed close interaction with Laura Bush and the spouses of other leaders at the events APEC arranged for them.
Viewing her trip to APEC as a diplomatic mission, Sophie Chang told reporters that she had done a lot of homework and research on the various spouses and made notes on their personal background to take with her.
"Since I viewed this trip as a task, I tried to perform it perfectly," Sophie Chang said.
Sophie Chang, 62, speaks fluent English, since she studied in the US after finishing senior high school in Taiwan. Thanks to her linguistic ability, she was able to chat with the other spouses without the need of a translator, shortening the distance between them.
In order to highlight Taiwan's features, she also wore colorful cheongsams by Taiwanese designers, and her elegant and cordial attitude won praise from all corners.
Knowing that the relationship with the US is an important one for Taiwan, Sophie Chang spent much of her time finding common topics to discuss with US first lady Laura Bush. She discovered that both their daughters are living in New York and working as volunteers at a non-profit group that promotes Laura Bush's "First Book" project.
Laura Bush has been promoting the project, which aims to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own brand new books, in the US.
Sophie Chang showed her an e-mail written by her daughter, and Laura wrote "with thanks to First Book" on it as a gift to Chang's daughter.
Sophie Chang even suggested that Taiwan could provide the organization with Chinese books for language learners since she believes Mandarin will become a major world language in the future. Laura Bush welcomed the idea and suggested they "could do that together."
Meanwhile, Sophie Chang also took time out to socialize with the Chinese president's wife, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin's wife. They were all extremely friendly, she said.
Reviewing the trip, Sophie Chang stressed that she acted like herself and did not pretend to be another person.
"Being myself and being natural was the key to getting along with the other spouses," she said. "The visit was an honor and also a duty for me, I'm so glad that I could make it."
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater