More Of That Silent Diplomacy

You know, the kind where you're too gutless to even open your mouth.  From yesterday's Taipei Times:

Vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) arrived in China yesterday for the [economic] Boao Forum and is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) today.

[...]

Meanwhile, the Taiwan Friends of Tibet group has issued an open letter to Hu and asked Siew to bring it to the Chinese president.

The letter urged Hu to “stop repression and all kinds of aggressive actions against the people of Tibet and start a sincere dialogue with the [Tibetan] government-in-exile led by the Dalai Lama.”

The group said an electronic copy was forwarded to [Siew's spokesman] Wang [Yu-chi], who accompanied Siew on the trip.

“I haven’t seen it because I don’t have Internet access here,” Wang told the Taipei Times via telephone. “I’ll probably not have it throughout the trip.”  [emphasis added throughout]

Yeah, I can see that.  After all, what cause have we to think that a technologically-backward country like China could provide INTERNET ACCESS for business travelers in any of its FIVE-STAR HOTELS?

(Or maybe China's upscale hotels DO have web access, but Taiwan's future V.P has gone a bit down-market, hoping to pinch a few pennies on his hotel bills.  Staying at the local YMCA then, is he?)