Former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Ting Mao-shih (丁懋時), who played a crucial role during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 99, an unnamed diplomatic source told the Central News Agency.
Ting died at Cheng Hsin General Hospital in Taipei, the source said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to talk publicly about Ting’s death.
Born on Oct. 10, 1925, in China’s Binchuan County, Yunnan Province, Ting served as Taiwan’s top diplomat from 1987 to 1988 and later as representative to the US. His previous overseas posts also included being a top envoy to South Korea, Rwanda and Zaire.
Photo: CNA
In May 1996, while serving as NSC secretary-general under then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Ting traveled to New York to engage in high-level talks with then-US deputy national security adviser James Steinberg amid the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The crisis refers to a series of missile tests China conducted in waters surrounding Taiwan in July 1995 following Lee’s visit to the US and in 1996, ahead of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, to warn Lee against attempts to build closer ties with the US and to pressure Taiwanese not to elect him.
The meeting was the first between high-level US and Taiwan security officials since official relations were severed in 1979. It established a platform for meetings between Washington’s and Taipei’s national security agencies despite the lack of official diplomatic relations.
Ting also met then-Japanese chief Cabinet secretary Seiroku Kajiyama in May 1996 to discuss the cross-strait situation and share intelligence, marking the first time a top Taiwanese national security official visited Japan since both sides cut diplomatic ties in 1972.
The US later sent the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group through the Taiwan Strait, which was then the biggest US military armada in Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. That strong showing of support for Taiwan reportedly forced China to end its military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
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