Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu received a rude change to her summer travel plans. After helping inaugurate Paraguay's new president, Lu's itinerary was to put her in the US city of Seattle to tour the Boeing factory, among other things. But while still in the Southern Hemisphere, and just a few days before the scheduled factory tour, the Taiwanese entourage received a call. "Boeing called and said it was not convenient for me to visit," Lu told Asia Times Online.I thought it was funny that Boeing's excuse was "it was not convenient". "It's not convenient" is what the Chinese often say when Americans would say "no".
History's first female Chinese vice president was angry, but by no means surprised. "My first reaction was to just forget it," she said, "but I was very unhappy that Boeing yielded to pressure from [mainland] China. It comes as a humiliation to myself as the vice president, and to the Taiwan people."
08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006