By Eduardo Baptista
LIMA (Reuters) – Lin Hsin-i, Taiwan’s representative at an Asia-Pacific summit in Lima, said on Saturday that he greeted China’s President Xi Jinping with a wave, but there was no handshake or conversation, a sign of the tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is one of the few international meetings both Taiwan and China take part in, and where officials from the two sides can interact, even if just to exchange pleasantries, though Taiwan does not send its president, given China’s objections.
Beijing views the island as its own territory with no right to state-to-state relations. Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
Speaking at a press conference, Lin, chairman of government-backed investment fund Taiwania Capital and also a former economy minister, said that while Taiwan had bilateral talks with many APEC members, with Xi there was just a greeting gesture across the room where leaders were gathered.
“The motion of a greeting has no details…” he said, adding that there was no handshake with the Chinese leader when asked.
The lack of interaction with Xi contrasts with the meeting Lin had with U.S. President Joe Biden the previous day, which the Taiwanese delegation described as a “lively” exchange of views.
The United States is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, though Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979 in favour of Beijing.
Last year, Taiwan representative Morris Chang, founder of chip giant TSMC, also spoke with Biden but not Xi.
But in 2022, then 91-year-old Chang had a “very pleasant” and “polite” interaction with Xi at an APEC summit in Bangkok, where Xi asked about Chang’s health and Chang congratulated Xi on the success of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; editing by Diane Craft and Alistair Bell)
