TAIPEI: Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui on Tuesday decided to scrap plans to visit Japan for health reasons, his office said, after his previous trips irked Beijing.
Lee had planned to fly to Japan on May 8 and deliver two speeches during a four-day stay but doctors advised the 90-year-old, who has twice been hospitalised this year, against the trip.
"Doctors said it is not proper for Lee to take a long-distance trip at the moment," office spokesman Wang Yen-chun told AFP, adding that the planned trip was to be postponed indefinitely.
The Japan-educated Lee has been to Japan five times since he retired as president in 2000, with each trip triggering protests from China's communist government, which sees the visits as attempts to strengthen Taiwan's status.
China, which still considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification, conducted missile tests in waters surrounding Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 in response to what it called Lee's attempts to "split the motherland".
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