Former minister of foreign affairs David Lee (李大維) shared a behind-the-scenes account of the historic 2016 phone call between then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and then-US president-elect Donald Trump in his memoir, which was published yesterday.
“The book is a recollection of my 40-plus-year career as a diplomat. I want to leave it as a record for future reference — for historians and younger generations,” Lee said during a book launch for his memoir.
In the book, Lee details the background of the phone call on Dec. 2, 2016, the first direct communication between a US president or president-elect and a Taiwanese president since diplomatic ties were severed in 1979.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
When Trump invited Tsai to visit Washington during the 11-minute congratulatory call, Tsai retained her “usual calm composure” and did not give a direct response due to the sensitivity of such a trip, Lee said, adding that the Presidential Office decided not to comment publicly until Trump wrote about the call in a post on X.
Former US assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs Randall Schriver, described in the book as a “long-time friend of Taiwan,” played a key role in facilitating the call, Lee said.
Lee also recounted his historic meeting with then-US national security adviser John Bolton in May 2019, the first time top national security officials from the two sides had met since 1979.
Such “US-Taiwan special channel talks” had been held since March 11, 1996, beginning with a meeting between then-US deputy national security adviser Sandy Berger and then-National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Ting Mao-shih (丁懋時), he said.
That meeting focused on the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, a conflict triggered by a series of missile tests conducted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the waters around Taiwan following then-president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) visit to the US and speech at his alma mater, Cornell University, Lee said.
However, the 2019 meeting with Bolton marked the first time Taipei’s and Washington’s top national security advisers participated in direct dialogue, Lee added.
Lee said that although he had served as foreign minister and NSC secretary-general, he still considered himself a diplomat, rather than a politician.
In a pre-recorded speech played during the book launch, Tsai praised Lee as a model career diplomat “who transcends party lines” and serves as the “cornerstone of the country’s long-term development.”
Lee served as top spokesman and deputy minister of foreign affairs during Lee Teng-hui’s administration. He later held diplomatic positions as representative to the EU, the US, Canada and Australia under former presidents Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
His final public service post before retirement was as chair of the Straits Exchange Foundation, a semi-official organization tasked with handling technical matters involving China, from January 2023 to May last year.
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