Top China negotiator to become new Taiwan premier-source

TAIPEI, May 13 (Reuters) Taiwan will choose the low-key chief of a semi-official organisation in charge of negotiations with China as its next premier for lack of other job candidates, a government source today said.

Chang Chun-hsiung, who is chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation and a former premier, will replace Su Tseng-chang, who announced yesterday he would step down.

Su lost the Democratic Progressive Party presidential primary last week to Frank Hsieh, also a former premier and analysts speculated that President Chen Shui-bian did not want him to steal the limelight from the ruling party's 2008 presidential candidate.

No one else wanted to be premier for only one year, the source said. President Chen must step down due to term limits in May 2008, two months after the election.

Local media had also tipped Chang to become the new premier, but neither Chang's office nor government spokespeople would comment on Su's successor. Su will become the fifth premier to quit during the current president's seven-year tenure.

Chang, 68, was the ruling party's first premier, from October 2000 through February 2002, and ran the president's campaign.

Analysts said that whoever is chosen premier would also be friendly to the ruling party's 2008 presidential nominee, who faces a tough contest against popular former Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou. Ma is concilatory toward Taiwan's archrival China, while the ruling party takes a hard line against it.

But the presidential office's image will suffer because of the frequency of premier changes.

''If my assessment is accurate, people will think Chen Shui-bian has failed as president and the Democratic Progressive Party has failed as a government,'' said George Tsai, a political analyst at National Cheng Chi University in Taiwan. ''The new premier cannot make any substantial achievements.'' REUTERS VD RK1051