NATIONALIST PARTY'S FIRST SPOKESWOMAN WANG LEE-CHING RECEIVES THE PARTY'S SEAL, 1997-12-18 (photo)

John Chang (C), secretary general of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party, oversees the handover December 18 of the party's seal from outgoing party spokesman Tsai Bih-hwang (L) to incoming spokeswoman Wang Lee-ching, the first woman to hold the post. The naming of a spokeswoman rather than a spokesman has been seen as a bid to brighten up the 104-year-old party's staid image less than a month after the Nationalists suffered an unexpected drubbing by the ascendant Democratic Progressive Party in islandwide municipal elections. The outgoing Tsai was at the centre of a minor controversy on his final day in office on Wednesday after misrepresenting remarks that President Lee Teng-hui, the party's chairman, had made about Taiwan's economic reforms. TAIWAN