Amid speculation Lee may be serving as emissary to thaw icy ties between Taipei and Beijing, officials were tight-lipped and played down the significance of the trip.

"Senior Minister Lee said his trip was private in nature," Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters after the closed-door meeting at a resort in the north of the island.

"Lee is concerned very much about the situation in the region," Tsai said, without providing details of the session. She added only that the visit was aimed at helping Lee stay abreast of cross-strait developments.

Tsai is reportedly the designer of former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui's controversial statehood claim in 1999, which Beijing said was a big step forward in his independence efforts.

Lee Kuan Yew also met with Taiwan's special envoy to China Koo Chen-fu in the afternoon. He is later expected to meet President Chen Shui-bian and Premier Yu Shyi-kun before his departure on Friday.

Hours after his arrival, he also met with Douglas Paal, the de facto US ambassador to Taiwan.

The Taiwanese government has kept Lee's trip in low-profile and refused to offer an itinerary, apparently for fear of irritating Beijing, which on Tuesday had already expressed its "regret and dissatisfaction" with the visit.

"Singapore knows well the position of the Chinese government on Taiwan," said Kong Quan, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, at a regular briefing.

Beijing opposes any official visit to Taiwan which it regards as part of its territory awaiting reunification by force if necessary.

The trip also comes just after an escalation in tensions between Taiwan and the mainland sparked when President Chen said each side of the strait was a country and Taiwanese people had the right to hold a vote on their future.

China reacted furiously to the remarks, and warned that Chen was leading the island toward "disaster."

Taiwanese officials insisted the president was only stating reality, not promoting independence, and that Taiwan's policy on China remained unchanged.

Singapore recognizes Beijing but maintains cordial ties with Taipei.

Lee Kuan Yew last visited Taiwan less than four months after Chen Shui-bian, as leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), took the presidential helm in 2000.

With Lee's assistance, Taipei and Beijing held their first summit talks in Singapore in 1993, which in turn led to several rounds of negotiations to discuss technical issues stemming from civil exchanges.

Singapore has since 1975 operated three military training camps in Taiwan, whose air force and navy sent officers to the city-state in the years after its independence in 1965.

Separately, Singapore has studied the proposal for forging a free trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and is prepared to proceed with a joint study to explore the feasibility of such an accord within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, Singapore's trade ministry said.

The Taipei government has been pushing for forging of such agreements with its major trading partners for fear it could be marginalised economically while rival China is fast emerging as a "magnet" to investors.

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