NEW YORK (AP) ¡X Taiwan's president met

with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Tuesday 

during a stopover in New York City ¡X 

a visit cleared by the Bush administration

despite the opposition of mainland China. 

    President Chen Shui-bian's three-day 

visit is not expected to include any news

conferences or public events. But Giuliani 

met privately with Chen on Tuesday morning

at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Chen 

is staying. Giuliani said nothing as he

left the meeting. 

    Following his visit with the mayor,Chen 

toured the New York Stock Exchange. He and his wife also visited the Metropolitan 

Museum of Art where they saw an exhibit honoring Jacqueline Kennedy. Later, they 

were to host a cocktail reception for about 200 community leaders. Chen was to 

meet with China policy scholars before leaving New York on Wednesday morning. 

    Also Tuesday, Chen met privately with former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger

, described as an old friend, and magazine publisher and two-time presidential 

candidate Steve Forbes, who was making a courtesy call. And late in the afternoon,

 he met with about 50 Taiwanese who live in the New York region. 

    On Monday evening, Chen met with 21 congressmen including Rep. David Wu, D-Ore.,

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., and Reps. Peter King 

and Benjamin Gilman, both R-N.Y. 

    Before heading to the Stock Exchange on Tuesday, he met with Rep. Robert Wexler

, D-Fla. 

    ``President Chen's visit represents an incremental step forward in American-Taiwan 

relations. Chen is committed to stability and Democracy and human rights and his next 

visit should be to Washington,'' Wexler said after the meeting. ``This should not be 

seen as antagonistic to China. It is simply a maturing of our relationship with Taiwan.'' 

    While his visit did not include plans for any public events, Chen and his wife both 

smiled and waved enthusiastically to journalists after his arrival Monday and again 

Tuesday. 

    The visit, the first by a Taiwanese president to the city, is the latest potential

stumbling block in relations between the United States and China. 

    In China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao called Washington's decision to 

let Chen make his stopover in New York a sign of a harder U.S. line toward China. 

   ``This act violates the commitments that the U.S. side has made,'' Zhu told

reporters. ``This act will inevitably harm China-U.S. relations.'' 

   Chen appeared to try to head off any criticism by China, explaining parts of 

his New York stopover that could anger Beijing. 

   During a Tuesday banquet speech, Chen, who frequently refers to himself by his 

nickname, Abian, explained that he consulted with U.S. officials in his car before

he began working the crowd. 

   ``Everyone waited in the rain for hours, so I couldn't let them down,'' Chen

said in the speech, videotaped by someone at the banquet and shared with Taiwan's

ETTV cable news. ``They wanted to see Abian not because Abian is handsome but

because of the great symbolism of my visit.'' 

    Chen also said that as soon as he arrived at his hotel, members of Congress

began calling him to arrange meetings. 

    Beijing sees Taiwan as a province lost amid civil war in 1949. Chinese officials 

believe granting Taiwan's presidents visiting rights violates the U.S. one-China 

policy, which recognizes only one Chinese government, the mainland, but insists 

that unification must be done peacefully. 

    People waving Taiwanese flags and pictures of Chen applauded his arrival in the 

city Monday, saying the visit might be their only chance to see him in this country. 

   ``He's the president of a nation. He should be able to enter this country and be

treated as the head of a nation,'' said Wendy Chern, a Chen supporter. 

   But a smaller group about a block away protested the visit, waving Chinese flags

and yelling, ``Unification, yes, separation, no.'' 

   ``For thousands of years, we Chinese have suffered from separation, arguments,

fighting each other. We need to unite,'' demonstrator Lucia Wai Yan Lo said. 

    Last year, during a stop in Los Angeles, Chen remained mostly in his hotel, 

and the Clinton administration discouraged members of Congress from visiting him. 

Taiwan Leader Greeted in U.S. With Protests and Warmth

         The Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian, arrived in New

York to fanfare and some protests last night, welcomed by local

and Congressional  politicians and by a Chinese community divided

 over his visit. 

      It was the first time a leader of Taiwan had visited the city. 

And  as Mr. Chen  made  his way  from  Taipei to  Midtown Manhattan,

Taiwanese and mainland Chinese immigrants in the city found 

themselves drawn into the longstanding international dispute over 

Taiwan. 

    Mr. Chen, the leader of an island of 22 million people that Beijing considers a renegade 

province,met last night with about two dozen members of Congress at the Waldorf- Astoria and 

was scheduled to meet today with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who planned to give him a key to 

the city in a closed-door ceremony with the trappings usually due a head of state. 



The United States does not recognize Taiwan as a country, and its status has been the focus 

of sometimes sharp dispute between the United States and China, ever since the Nationalist 

Chinese leaders fled there in 1949 after the Communist takeover. Most recently, President 

Bush seemed to take the policy a step further by saying the United States would do whatever 

it took to defend Taiwan, but he qualified his remarks later by saying Taiwan should not 

declare independence or provoke a Chinese attack.





To the thousands of Chinese immigrants who live and work in relative peace with one another

 in New York, largely in Chinatown and Flushing, Queens, Mr. Chen's arrival has fueled a

 prickly debate between those with roots on Taiwan and those from mainland China. These days, 

the two groups have been at odds, arguing inside restaurant kitchens and on buses and subways,

 or trading political barbs across the pages of the city's Chinese-language newspapers.



"I am calm," said William Wu, a chef who came to Flushing from Taiwan 13 years ago and works

 with waiters from Beijing at a restaurant in Hicksville, on Long Island. "But the people 

from mainland China, it's very hard for them to be calm."



Calm was not the prevailing sentiment last night when Mr. Chen arrived about 6:30 p.m. and

 was whisked into the Waldorf-Astoria, his wife, who uses a wheelchair, by his side. Outside

 the hotel were about 1,000 supporters along Park Avenue at 50th Street, waving the green and

 white flag of Taiwan and shouting "Long live Taiwan!" 



On another corner, at 49th and Park, stood the pro-China demonstrators, numbering about 500

 but making more noise, shouting, "Defeat independence!" and waving the gold and red Chinese 

flag.



George Hua, an organizer of the pro-China rally, who immigrated from mainland China in 1968, 

lives in Manhattan and works as a translator at the United Nations, was running up and down

 Park Avenue with a megaphone, urging the protesters to chant louder.



"We Chinese have our political wisdom," Mr. Hua said during a break. "We don't need anyone 

interfering."



Several members of Congress stopped in the hotel lobby to speak to reporters after meeting

 with Mr. Chen.



"In this country, we come from all parts of the world, every race, every religion, and there's 

one thing that ties us together," said Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican. "And that's a 

love of liberty and justice and democracy. We break away from that, we're breaking away from 

our own roots. Tonight we are reaffirming what America stands for by being here to welcome

 President Chen, the democratically elected president," he said, drawing out the syllables of 

the last three words.



In yesterday's World Journal, the largest and most influential Chinese- language daily newspaper 

in the city, two advertisements appeared, each staking a position on Mr. Chen's visit and the

 Taiwan question. A full-page advertisement, on Page 7, welcomed him, and a half-page 

advertisement, on Page 9, denounced the visit and accused the Taiwanese leadership of using his 

New York stopover as a backhanded way of achieving a closer relationship with Washington.



Taiwan has sent thousands of immigrants to New York City over the last 35 years, and its 

president

 is a much-admired figure to the Taiwanese here. The 50-year-old Mr. Chen, who grew up on 

a farm and is viewed by many Taiwanese as a charismatic populist, is something of a hero, 

even to those who have not returned home since arriving. 



The Nationalist Party, the political successor of the government that fled the Communists 

in 1949 under Chiang Kai-shek, controlled the Taiwanese government until Mr. Chen was elected

 last year. His race was so hotly contested that many Taiwanese watched it closely. 



To immigrants here from mainland China, particularly those still loyal to the Chinese government, 

Mr. Chen's stop in New York is yet another affront, a diplomatic dig with a New York twist.

 And Mayor Giuliani's ceremonial greeting of Mr. Chen, and his plan to declare support for an

 independent Taiwan, worries them. 



"I think it's not wise to provoke either side," said a computer scientist, Min Wang, who came

 to Jersey City five years ago from mainland China. "It could cause some serious international 

problems." 



While Mr. Chen's activities last night and today, including a stop later today at the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, are closed to reporters, his foray into the city appears to be 

anything but low key. 



It seems that no matter how sensitive the situation, there is no room for subtlety in New 

York City. 

Taiwan leader makes US stop-over