New Taiwan leader reportedly cautious with China

TAIPEI — Taiwan's ex-president said Wednesday that the island's new leader will tread cautiously in dealing with rival China, despite pressure from some in his party to engage Beijing without delay.

Ex-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's comments came as Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party was meeting in Beijing with Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao.

The meeting heightened expectations that new Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou might be ready to preside over a rapid improvement in political relations between the sides, which split amid civil war in 1949.

Ma took office last week.

But in an interview with The Associated Press at his Taipei home, Lee said Ma had the ability to withstand pressure from Nationalist hard-liners and would hew to his promise not to discuss unification during his presidency.

China still claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and has pledged to unify with the island of 23 million people — by force if necessary, by persuasion if possible.

"When Ma sees people in the Nationalists pursuing cross-strait ties overzealously, he will take China ties slowly and deal with them step by step in the best interests of Taiwan," Lee said.

While Lee has been out of office for eight years, millions of Taiwanese still venerate him for institutionalizing democracy after 50 years of dictatorship by past Nationalists.

He was the first Taiwanese leader to push the idea of Taiwanese sovereignty, breaking with existing Nationalist doctrine that Taiwan was an inseparable part of China.

His political influence remains profound, not only for outgoing President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, but also for many Nationalist moderates, despite his unceremonious removal from the party's leadership in 2000.

Lee's influence has already affected Ma's administration, with the new president choosing a Lee protege to take the key post of coordinator for government China policy.

Nationalist conservatives panned the appointment of Lai Shin-yuan as chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, charging that her outspoken support for Taiwanese sovereignty could undermine warming ties between Taiwan and China.

Lee said Ma discussed the appointment with him beforehand, and insisted that Lai's role would be to slow the pace of China ties when that was deemed necessary.

"Lai should be able to serve as a brake," Lee said.

Discussing Wednesday's meeting in Beijing between Hu and Wu, Lee said real progress between Taiwan and China could only come when they employ a "one-track platform."

That appeared to be a call for the sides to hold government-to-government contacts, rather than meetings between representatives of their ruling parties.

China has resisted government-to-government contacts in the past, fearing they might confer legitimacy on Taiwan as a separate political entity.

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