Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), head of the Academia Sinica, is slated to arrive in Bangkok today as President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) special emissary to attend the informal APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, or APEC summit, on Oct. 20 and Oct.21.
After a briefing by the Taiwan delegation, Lee will subsequently hold a press conference at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center where the APEC meetings are held.
Lee is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with a number of APEC leaders prior to attending the informal APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Monday and Tuesday.
Last year, Taiwan had leadership bilateral meetings with Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, New Guinea (PNG) and the Philippines.
As of press time last night, however, the names of countries with which Lee will hold bilateral meetings have been withheld as confidential information.
China's President Hu Jintao
It is of great media interest whether Lee will have a chance to exchange views with Hu on cross-strait-related issues as well as whether Chen had entrusted Lee with any special message to Hu.
The Taiwan delegation had expressed curiosity about what Hu and US President George W. Bush will talk about during their bilateral meeting.
"We will be keeping a keen eye of [Hu and Bush's] meeting and exchanges during the APEC summit," said an official who wished to remain anonymous.
The Taiwan delegation yesterday had ministerial bilateral meetings with representatives from Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam.
"We are still working on having a ministerial bilateral meeting with the delegation from China," said Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Yin Chi-ming (
He said among the themes touched on during the meeting with Australia were issues on strengthening the multilateral trading system, setting standards in trade investment facilitation and transparency, and topics relating to the global progress of the Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) and Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Anti-terrorism was also among the issues covered during the meeting, Yin said.
Yin was not able to brief the press on the content of the meetings with Vietnam and New Zealand as both were still in progress.
Meanwhile, questions had been raised by the Taiwan press about the participation of a Taiwan representative in the foreign ministers' meeting.
Last year Taiwan was excluded from attending the meeting during which foreign ministers of other APEC member economies had gathered to discuss the fight on terrorism. When asked whether this would happen again this year, Tung Kuo-yu (董國猶), director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of International Organizations, didn't deny the possibility.
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