Presidential proxy Lin Hsin-I gears up for APEC gathering

This article was written by Shih Ying-ying and published by the Taiwan Journal on November 18, 2005. It reports that Lin Hsin-I, senior presidential advisor and former economics minister, was recently appointed as President Chen Shui-bian's proxy to attend this year's APEC informal leaders' meeting in Busan, South Korea. The original appointee, Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng, was opposed by Beijing and therefore rejected by Seoul.

Because of opposition from China, the ROC president has been barred from attending the annual APEC informal leadership meetings and has had to name a proxy to attend on his behalf, under the name "Chinese Taipei".

In the past, during his term as minister of economic affairs, Lin attended the 2000 APEC Joint Ministerial Meetings in Brunei and the 2001 APEC conference in Shanghai. During the Shanghai conference, Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan simply refused to allow the ROC representative to speak.