SHANGHAI (Reuters) - President Bush, on his first foreign trip since the U.S. air attacks, met Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Friday in the most prominent of a blitz of bilateral meetings among Asia Pacific leaders before a summit. (Read photo caption below)But as the two leaders began their meeting ahead of a weekend summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping, news broke from Taipei that Taiwan would boycott the leaders' gathering.
Taiwan lodged a protest over Beijing's failure to send an invitation for former vice president Li Yuan-zu to attend the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Shanghai.
In a row on Thursday, with Bush's secretary of state Colin Powell looking on, China's foreign minister curtly refused to allow Taiwan's economics minister speak at a news conference.
In their first encounter, Bush and Jiang were meeting in a walled state compound in the western suburbs of Shanghai, China's spectacular financial capital.
Neither man commented on Taiwan.
Bush arrived in Shanghai on Thursday amid extraordinary security to back trade liberalization and shore up support among the disparate 21-member APEC grouping for the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
Bush, whose former president father George Bush was once U.S. ambassador to China, took office in January with a tough stance on Beijing, calling China ``a strategic competitor'' rather than the ``strategic partner'' envisaged by predecessor Bill Clinton.
PHOTO CAPTION:
President Bush and China's President Jiang Zemin are shown at Zemin's guest house Friday Oct.19, 2001, in Shanghai, China. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette)