RELATED:
Lee Kuan Yew 'no emissary'
Beijing tells Singapore's Lee to butt out


SENIOR Minister Lee Kuan Yew has urged Taiwan and China to resume dialogue "sooner than later" before more difficulties arise, a report said today.

In his meetings with Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and other top-ranking mainland policy officials here, the senior statesman stressed the importance of an early resolution to the cross-strait dispute, the China Times said.

But Lee denied he was delivering any messages from Beijing and said his September 23-26 visit in Taipei was not authorized by Chinese authorities, the paper said, quoting Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen.

Chen has also refuted speculation that Singapore's founding father had served as "a mediator, a lobbyist" in cross-strait relations.

Singapore has diplomatic relations with Beijing rather than with Taipei.

The Singaporean leader in 1993 hosted the historic dialogue between China and Taiwan, which were separated in 1949 at the end of a bitter civil war.

But subsequent high-level talks between the two sides, represented by their respective semi-official bodies, were suspended following a trip to the United States in mid-1995 by then president Lee Teng-hui, which enraged Beijing.

Lee predicted that over the short-term there would be stability across the Taiwan Strait, Tsai told lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in a secretive briefing Wednesday.

The resumption of cross-strait talks "should be held sooner than later, and better be this year.

"If it waits until next year, more uncertainties will arise. Tsai quoted Lee as saying. "Cross-strait disputes must not be prolonged."

Lee also said Beijing was upset with Chen's recent remarks that "reunification is not the only option" in Taiwan-China relations.

China considers the island a breakaway province awaiting reunification. It has demanded that Chen accepts its "one China" principle -- that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it -- before it sits down for negotiations.

Chen, however, has rejected the "one China" notion, saying it can be an agenda but not a pre-condition for any dialogue.

Chen has stressed the island independent sovereignty but urged leaders from the two sides to work on a "future one China."

The Taiwan leader, meanwhile, Friday refreshed his offer to reopen dialogue with Beijing.

"The leaders of the South and North were able to shake hands after abandoning their prejudices and by putting their rivalries aside," Chen told Japan's Yumiuri Simbun in an interview.

"Why can't the two sides (of the Taiwan Strait) do what South and North (Korea) did?" he said.

Chen was referring to the unprecedented summit in June in Pyongyang between South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, saying Taiwan and China should follow that example.