The Ministry of National Defense yesterday denied reports that Chief of the General Staff Admiral Li Chieh (李傑) has been invited to attend a defense conference to be held early next month in the US.
The ministry said that the defense conference was organized by a private US-based institute and that it was unlikely that Admiral Li would attend even if he was invited.
"Li has not accepted any invitation from the institute and he has no knowledge about what the conference is about," the ministry said.
The ministry made the statement in response to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper yesterday that Admiral Li had been invited to attend a defense conference to be held between March 10 and March 12 in Florida, organized by the US-Taiwan Business Council.
The US-Taiwan Business Council is a private organization established in 1976 to promote trade and business relationships between the two countries.
The conference, called the "defense summit" by organizers, is to be the most significant of its kind since the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, the report said.
The conference is to be attended by high-ranking defense officials from both countries, including US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly as well as Taiwan National Security Council Secretariat-Director Lieutenant General James Liu (劉湘濱) and Communications, Electronics and Information Bureau Director Lieutenant General Abe Lin (林勤經).
Both Liu and Lin are confirmed speakers at the conference, where they will discuss Taiwan's construction of a C4I (command, control, communication, computer and intelligence) system.
Admiral Li is on the invitation list, but he is not yet a confirmed attendee, according to information available from the official Web site of the US-Taiwan Business Council.
Also on the list is General Chen Chen-hsiang (陳鎮湘) of the National Defense University, who has been invited to attend a roundtable discussion on the second day of the conference.
An official with the ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "it goes a little too far to call the conference the most significant of its kind since 1979."
The three-day defense conference is to focus on three topics.
First, the weapons procurement process and budget and planning procedures.
Second, the weapons procurement process including contract, procedure, offset requirements and implementation.
Third, Taiwan's defense requirements in the 21st century, according to the US-Taiwan Business Council's Web site.
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