Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), Taiwan's top negotiator with China and chairman of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), died aged 88 in Taipei early yesterday morning.
Koo and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Daohan (汪道涵), who together set up the first official contact between Taiwan and China in 1993, died of complications from kidney cancer, said a spokesman from the Cheng Hsin Rehabilitation Medical Center, where Koo had been treated since October.
PHOTO: CNA
Koo's heart condition worsened at around 2:30am and doctors made several attempts at resuscitation.
"However, doctors could not defibrillate [him] because of his fragile health. He passed away peacefully at 4:05am," medical center deputy director Fu Jene-john (符振中) said at a press conference.
Koo's physician, Luke Chang (張心湜), said Koo had suffered from kidney disease for 15 years. In 1997, Koo's right kidney was removed, and he underwent kidney dialysis on a regular basis after cancer was discovered in his left kidney in 2003.
Wang, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, sent a letter of condolence to Koo's wife, Cecilia Koo (
"I am shocked by the sudden death of Mr. Koo. This wise man has perished and my sorrow increases when I think about this. Mr. Koo had been committed to cross-strait relations for 14 years. I have long admired him, a man so well-versed in Chinese literature and poetry," Wang wrote.
Recalling their two historic meetings -- the so-called Koo-Wang talks -- in Singapore in 1993 and Shanghai in 1998, Wang said he did not think that the meeting in Shanghai would be the last time he would be able to meet Koo.
"If God has feelings, he would feel my regret, too," Wang wrote.
But he added that "peace" and "unification" were the only two ways out for China and Taiwan.
Wang said he hoped that Taiwan and China could retain the so-called "1992 consensus" -- which led to the Koo-Wang talks in Singapore -- so that "a new chapter of negotiation and dialogue" could be written.
Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), chief of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, praised Koo for "abiding by the 1992 consensus."
"When I met with Mr. Koo in Beijing six years ago, he toasted us and gave blessings to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and for the reunification of China. I am still very touched when I think about that," Chen said.
Chen was referring to Koo's trip to Beijing to meet Jiang Zemin (
However, Koo's brother Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏), a senior presidential advisor and fervent supporter of Taiwan's independence, said Koo Chen-fu changed his mind about unification with China.
Koo Kwang-ming said that a few days ago his brother said, "we can never let China devour Taiwan."
"If the people of Taiwan cannot unite, how can they face China and the US?" Koo Kwang-ming quoted his brother as saying.
Koo Kwang-ming added, "My political stance has been different from my brother's. But what he told me a few days before his death really moved me."
President Chen Shui-bian (
The Mainland Affairs Council has appointed Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (
Meanwhile, two former Singaporean prime ministers -- Lee Kuan Yew (
In a condolence letter to Koo's wife, Lee praised Koo for his "balanced and realistic appraisal" of the cross-Taiwan Strait situation.
Lee further said Koo played a valuable role in helping to stabilize cross-strait relations.
Goh, who is now Singapore's senior minister, said in his condolence letter to Koo's wife that he was deeply saddened to learn of Koo's passing.
"We used to sit next to one another I know him to be upright, sincere and thoughtful gentleman who cared for his friends. I also know he cared deeply about cross-strait peace and stability," Goh said in the letter.
Also see stories:
Koo one of the nation's most important figures
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has