“The US will always be there for Taiwan,” one of Taiwan’s leading supporters in Washington said this week.
Clinton’s trip neither “alleviated nor added to” the concerns over Taiwan policy in the Obama administration, he said.
Observers say there will be no return to the Taiwan policy of Clinton’s husband and former president, Bill, many of whose policies were distasteful to Taiwanese as he pushed to improve relations with China amid strained cross-strait relations.
But Obama’s administration is piled high with former Clinton administration Asia policy stalwarts, who presumably hold much the same ideas they did when they helped establish that earlier policy. One would hope that they have matured since then.
Taiwan and the world have yet to see what the current president, and the current State Department under Clinton, have on their plate as they decide on actions crucial to the fate of Taiwan and its people. Stay tuned.
Charles Snyder is the former Washington correspondent for the Taipei Times.
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