Thu, Apr 04, 2019 page3

• Beijing notified Tseng ahead of 1995 missile test

  • By Lin Tsui-yi and William Hetherington / Staff reporter in TOKYO, with staff writer
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  Former presidential adviser Tseng Yung-hsien (曾永賢) received a telephone call from Beijing weeks before China fired missiles at waters off Taiwan on July 21, 1995, advising him of the impending missile test that became known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, a Japanese daily reported yesterday.

  The Sankei Shimbun said that Tseng received the call about three weeks before the missiles were launched and was told that the government should “remain calm.”

  Several other missile launches were conducted in the waters around Taiwan over the following year, increasing tensions in the region and resulting in the US sending warships into the Taiwan Strait.

  

  A photograph of former president Lee Teng-hui is pictured in yesterday’s edition of Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily.

  Photo: Lin Tsui-i, Taipei Times

  The launches were largely seen as a move by Beijing to intimidate Taiwanese voters who were going to the polls in 1996 to directly elect a president for the first time.

  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had nominated then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who was seen as moving away from the “one China” principle.

  The report is part of a series that Sankei is running on Lee, including his role in Taiwan’s democratization, his handling of Chinese threats and his establishment of close ties with Japan.

  The series, titled “The Secret Records of Lee Teng-hui,” includes information from Lee’s personal notes, the paper said, adding that the series would run until the end of the year.

  Yesterday’s report — the first in the series — came from Tseng’s testimony about the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and about his role as Lee’s secret envoy, it said.

  Tseng in 1992 traveled to Hong Kong and Beijing to meet with top Chinese officials on behalf of Lee, the report said.

  Tseng, 95, was educated in Japan and later joined a communist organization after returning to Taiwan, resulting in his arrest. He later joined the KMT and entered the Investigation Bureau to help with the government’s anti-communist counterintelligence efforts.

  After becoming president, Lee recruited Tseng as a researcher at the now-defunct National Unification Council, where he studied foreign affairs policies aimed at China and Japan.

  Tseng later worked as a national policy adviser and an adviser at the Presidential Office, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.

  Tseng first met with Chinese officials at a restaurant in Hong Kong in 1992 under Lee’s orders, before being invited to Beijing for further talks.

  The Chinese were well-informed about Tseng and Lee’s close relationship and were “pleasantly surprised” with their plans regarding China, the report said, adding that Tseng also met with then-Chinese president Yang Shangkun (楊尚昆).

  It was because of this channel of communication that China informed Tseng before launching missiles in 1995, the report said.

  Tseng received the call from his Chinese contact at his residence in early July and immediately informed Lee, it said.

  Tseng had understood the message as implying that no missiles would hit Taiwanese soil, and therefore there was no need for panic, the newspaper said, adding that Lee was relieved after Tseng explained his understanding to him.

  Xinhua news agency on July 18 announced that China would conduct missile tests in a simulated attack on Taiwan.

  China three days later launched Dongfeng-15 short-range ballistic missiles from a base in Jiangxi Province. The missiles fell into the sea 130km off the north coast of Taiwan, in the waters near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台).
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