Taipei, Jan. 17 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian urged Canada Thursday to refrain from speaking against the Republic of China's bids to join the United Nations and to become a World Health Organization (WHO) observer if it cannot lend its support.
Chen made the appeal while meeting with a visiting Canadian parliamentary delegation headed by Bryon Wilfert.
During their talks, Chen first expressed his gratitude for Canada's support for Taiwan's memberships in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the World Trade Organization.
Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, Chen said substantive relations between Taiwan and Canada have been close. Nevertheless, he said, bilateral trade has not grown as fast as expected over the past five years. "We believe that there is still room for further growth in our two-way trade and economic cooperation through cutting trade barriers and increasing high-level exchanges," Chen said.
He pointed out that Canada has consistently imposed many restrictions on senior ROC officials' visits under its so-called "one China" policy which recognizes Beijing as the sole representative of China. "If Canada can remove unreasonable restrictions to facilitate exchanges of visits by high-ranking officials of our two countries, bilateral trade and economic cooperation would certainly rise further," Chen noted.
Besides, Chen said he hopes that if Canada cannot actively support Taiwan's U.N. bid and its desire to obtain WHO observer status, it can at least refrain from adopting a negative stance.
Chen said he felt very unhappy when he learned that a Canadian parliamentarian received rude treatment from mainland Chinese authorities simply because of wearing a Falun Gong vest while attending activities in mainland China in February 2000. "That would not be a problem in Taiwan as Falun Gong members are free to do whatever they want to do about their faith," Chen said. "Different attitudes toward Falun Gong betray the wide ideological gap between democratic Taiwan and Communist China."
For his part, Wilfert said he was pleased to see Taiwan smoothly complete its first-ever peaceful transition of power between different political parties in May 2000 and a critical legislative election last December, which resulted in a change of the largest party in the Legislative Yuan.
The smooth political transformation signifies Taiwan's maturity in democratic development, Wilfert said.
Noting that Taiwan is now Canada's fourth-largest trading partner, Wilfert said he is convinced that bilateral trade and economic relations would grow even closer after Taiwan's formal WTO entry at the beginning of this year.
Wilfert also assured Chen that he and his parliamentary colleagues will do their utmost to help boost Canada-Taiwan relations.
Touching on relations across the Taiwan Strait, Wilfert said he expects to see the two sides sit down for constructive talks to seek ways out of their disputes.
As cross-strait issues are critical to regional peace and stability, Wilfert said, they should be resolved peacefully.
Other members of the Canadian parliamentary delegation included Michel Gauthier, Jim Abbott, Rick Borotsik, Steve Mahoney, Helene Scherrer, and Tony Tirabassi. Also present at the meeting was Ted Lipman, the Canadian representative to Taiwan.