A message of goodwill from President Chen Shui-bian (
"I certainly will deliver a message of goodwill from the president when I meet Jiang," Lee said at a news conference yesterday.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
As the head of the Academia Sinica and this year's presidential envoy to the APEC leaders summit, Lee said yesterday that the meetings are not the place to resolve pragmatic problems, but a goodwill gesture will be certainly delivered. He also said that Chen did not give him concrete instructions about the matter last Friday when the two met.
Lee will depart for Los Cabos, Mexico tomorrow afternoon before which he will still have a chance to meet Chen to discuss details of his mission. Lee will sit next to the US President George W. Bush for four hours and will have the opportunity to meet Jiang.
Answering questions from reporters about what he would say to the two leaders, Lee said, "There are many things to discuss. I don't have any agenda in mind." But he said he would not necessarily ask questions about Sino-US relations and would not mention China's deployment of missiles aimed at Taiwan, because, "That would appear impolite."
"APEC is not the right venue to discuss such issues," he said, adding that, "rather than a field for diplomatic fighting, APEC presents an opportunity for Taiwan to raise its image in the international arena."
The Nobel laureate also said talks with China on the establishment of direct links would not likely materialize at the summit.
After receiving the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1986, Lee had the chance to go to China and visit with Jiang three times during which they talked about technology and education development in China.
"He [Jiang] is not a stranger to me," Lee said.
Denying that Taipei had asked him to pass on any specific message to the Chinese authorities, he said Chen asked him to "give his best regards" to Jiang.
At the news conference, Lee also encouraged Taiwan to have more interaction with China without fearing that Beijing will use direct links as an opportunity to push for unification.
"With the trend of globalization, national boundaries are not that important," he said.
He stressed that the most important thing for Taiwan when attending the APEC meeting is earning respect from other countries by making contributions in the bilateral meetings with leaders from other countries.
He also gave a briefing of his speech which will be delivered at the meeting.
He said oil will run out within 40 years if the current supply and demand of oil continues, and he predicted that there will be an energy crisis within the next 20 years.
Given that research on alternative power sources may not see any real progress within the next 20 years, he said nuclear power might be a temporary solution for this problem.
Since Taiwan and China both joined APEC in 1991, China has blocked Taiwan's presidents and foreign ministers from attending the organization's annual forums.
KMT Deputy Chairman Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), Legislative Vice Speaker Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), and central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) have been consulted by Lee for their experience with APEC.
Also See Stories:
APEC delegation hits Mexican resort
Making the most of the APEC meet
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS