Lee, 82, was scheduled to visit Anchorage, New York City, Washington DC and Los Angeles for meetings with politicians, scholars and Taiwanese groups, said Taiwan Advocates, a local think tank which is organising the trip.

Lee's office has said the former Taiwan leader will use the 13-day trip to urge the international community to recognise China's rising military threat to the island, the Asia Pacific region and the international community.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan hit out at the trip.

"As we all know, this trouble-maker has done serious damage to Sino-American relations in the past and the United States is very clear about that," he said.

"Therefore we're opposed to him visiting the US in any capacity, to go to the US to promote his pro-Taiwan independence rhetoric, to go to the US to damage cross-straits relations," Kong added.

Following his retirement in 2000 after 12 years as president, Lee, a former Kuomintang (KMT) chairman, has served as the "spiritual leader" of the hardline pro-independence party Taiwan Solidarity Union.

In June 1995, Lee, as president, visited Cornell University in New York state. His high-profile trip angered China, which subsequently fired ballistic missiles into shipping lanes off Taiwan's two major ports and held war games on Chinese territory facing Taiwan.

The crisis did not end until March 1996 when the US sent two battle carrier groups to waters off the island in a clear warning to Beijing not to use force to settle its sovereignty dispute with Taipei.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war but Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

The US is the leading arms supplier to Taiwan despite the switching of its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

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