SAN FRANCISCO – Taiwan’s envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, Dr Morris Chang, said on Nov 17 that he had informal interactions with US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the event in San Francisco, but not with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Taiwan, which takes part in the Apec forum as “Chinese Taipei” and does not send its president to summits, has faced increased military pressure from Beijing, including two rounds of major war games during the past 1½ years.

China regards self-governing Taiwan as its territory, to be reunified. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims.

Dr Chang, the 92-year-old founder of chip giant TSMC, told reporters that he had also talked to US Vice-President Kamala Harris on the sidelines of the US-hosted summit, a replay of their meeting in 2022 in Thailand, where Dr Chang also met Mr Xi.

However, Dr Chang said he did not talk to Mr Xi at 2023’s summit. Given that both Taiwan and China are members of the forum, Apec is one of the few global summits where officials from both sides can interact, even if just to exchange pleasantries.

“My interactions with President Biden (were) of a social, in fact, I might say, humorous nature,” Dr Chang said.

“With Secretary Blinken, I mainly conveyed our strong desire for regional peace and prosperity, and also to some extent our very strong desire for increasing the supply resiliency.”

He added that he met Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the summit, with a focus on peace and economic development, supply chains and semiconductors.

Dr Chang called the recent Biden-Xi talks a “good meeting”.

“It was good news that they resumed the military communications, and I think that it should help to reduce the tension between the United States and China. And it should increase the stability of (the) Taiwan Strait,” he said. REUTERS