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Updated Monday, November 15, 2010 10:40 am TWN, CNA

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Lien did not raise missile issue with Hu

YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Taiwan's presidential envoy to the 2010 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leadership summit said Sunday that he did not raise the issue of China's missile deployment targeting Taiwan during his brief meeting with China's president on the sidelines of the summit.

Former Vice President Lien Chan, who took part in the APEC leadership summit in Yokohama, Japan Nov. 13-14 on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou, said during an international press conference at his hotel that he did not raise the missile issue during his talks with Hu Jintao a day earlier.

Lien was responding to a Japanese journalist who asked whether he talked with Hu about the prospects of China's removal of more than 1,000 Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan.

The Japanese reporter also asked Lien whether he had invited Hu to pay an official visit to Taiwan.

“The answer to your two questions is negative,” Lien said.

Answering another question about a high-standard regional free-trade bloc called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Lien said all APEC economies, including Taiwan, are interested in knowing more about the group, basically a free-trade, barrier-free mechanism.

“The world will have a clearer picture about the TPP and its further development when the group meets in New Zealand next month,” Lien said.

The TPP is considered a means of promoting a proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) amid multilateral efforts to boost economic integration in the region. Other means include the ASEAN Plus Three (Japan, China and South Korea) and the ASEAN Plus Six (the same three countries with the addition of New Zealand, Australia and India.)

According to Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang, most participants at the APEC ministerial-level meeting held in Yokohama Nov. 10-12 were supportive of the FTAAP goal.

The TPP is a multilateral free trade agreement initiated by four APEC economies — Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore — in 2005. Five other APEC member nations — Australia, Malaysia, Peru, the United States and Vietnam — are also seeking to enter the body.

Its immediate goal is that all member nations will cut their import tariffs to zero by 2015.

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