Taiwan's ex-top security official during the 1996 Strait Crisis dies

Taipei, Sept. 17 (CNA) Former National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Ting Mao-shih (丁懋時), who played a crucial role during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 99, an unnamed diplomatic source told CNA.

Ting died at the Cheng Hsin General Hospital in Taipei, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about Ting's death.

Born on October 10, 1925, in China's Binchuan County, Yunnan Province, Ting was a senior diplomat who served as the Republic of China's (Taiwan) top diplomat from 1987 to 1988 and later as representative to the United States. His previous overseas posts also included being a top envoy to South Korea, Rwanda, and Zaire.

In May 1996, while serving as NSC secretary-general under then President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Ting traveled to New York to engage in a high-level talk with James Steinberg, then deputy national security adviser under U.S. President Bill Clinton, amid the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.

The crisis refers to a series of missile tests China conducted in waters surrounding Taiwan in July 1995 following Lee's visit to the U.S. and in 1996, ahead of Taiwan's first direct presidential election, to warn Taiwan's Lee against attempts to build closer ties with the U.S. and to pressure Taiwanese voters not to elect him.

The meeting was the first between high-level U.S. and Taiwan security officials since the sides ended official relations in 1979. It established a platform for meetings between Washington and Taipei's national security agencies despite the lack of official diplomatic relations.

Ting also met with then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama in May 1996 to discuss the cross-strait situation and share intelligence, marking the first time a top Taiwan national security official visited Japan since both sides cut diplomatic ties in 1972.

The U.S. later sent the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group through the Taiwan Strait, which was then the biggest U.S. military armada in Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. That strong showing of support for Taiwan reportedly forced China to end its military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.