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Joseph Wu takes up Washington post

Joseph Wu, Taiwan's new representative in the US, is greeted by overseas Taiwanese and reporters upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Sunday. PHOTO: CNA

Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), the first ethnic Taiwanese to become the nation's top representative in the US, arrived in Washington on Sunday to take up the position, under pressure to improve trust between Taipei and Washington and ensure that the US understands Taiwan's political policies and problems.

Wu arrived on a flight from Los Angeles to a rain-soaked Washington on an unseasonably cold day, three days after his predecessor, David Lee (李大維), left for Ottawa, where he is the new top representative in Canada.

Wu was met on arrival at Dulles International Airport in Virginia by Barbara Schrage, director of the Washington office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and by John Deng (鄧振中), the deputy representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington.

FAN CLUB

Some 75 Taiwanese-Americans welcomed Wu at the airport, carrying signs marking his arrival and urging a role for Taiwan in the WHO. They surrounded him as he emerged from the gate area and he spent nearly a half hour accepting their well wishes.

"When I see so many overseas Taiwanese welcoming me at the airport, I am deeply touched," he said.

"I feel that they have high expectations of me and therefore it is going to translate into a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. And I will try to do my best to carry out my responsibilities," he said.

His first job as Taiwan's man in Washington, he said, would be to "take different briefings from different sections of TECRO, and my second is to meet with our friends in the [Bush] administration and in Congress."

Wu said that he had not arrived carrying any special message from President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to US President George W. Bush.

Schrage welcomed Wu.

"I am sure that given his background and personality, he will be successful," she told Taiwanese reporters at the airport.

EXPECTATIONS

"I think any representative who can faithfully reflect the views of the Taiwan government and can gain the confidence of the US government is what we need here," Schrage said.

"I would say that many of your other representatives have been successful, and I expect him to be very successful, too," she said.

Wu, the scion of a well-to-do family from Changhua, is a former academic and chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council.

Over the years, he has come to know and has developed good relations with a large number of academics and Taiwan-watchers in the US capital, and is well known to key government officials, which should stand him in good stead as he tries to improve bilateral ties with the US.

While relations have improved considerably since earlier in the decade, when Bush took Chen to task for planning two referendums during the 2004 presidential election, friction and mistrust continue to mark the relationship.

Over the past year or so, these were manifested in strong criticism by the State Department of Chen's action in mothballing the National Unification Council and declaring his so-called "four wants" agenda for independence and a change in the country's official name.

These have come at a time when the Bush administration has been consumed by the draining war in Iraq, and has had to rely increasingly heavily on China to try to defuse North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Wu's arrival coincidentally comes as the US Congress returns from its two-week spring recess, which could give Wu an opportunity to facilitate the introduction of legislation favorable to Taiwan's causes by any one of a number of lawmakers who support Taipei.

It will also give him an opportunity to view at close hand the runup to the US presidential election campaign, which is growing in intensity daily, and assess the attitudes of the various candidates toward Taiwan and China.

Wu arrived at the airport only about a half hour before Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), who will be in Washington for three days of talks with US government officials and others trying to promote a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the US.

Lee, an early pro-independence activist during the White Terror era, was the former deputy TECRO representative, and so is familiar with US officials and others in the capital concerned with Taiwanese affairs.

His role as Council of Labor Affairs chief should help him in any FTA talks, since the Democrats who now control Congress are adamant in their insistence that any FTA contain protections for workers, a position resisted by Bush and the Republican Party generally.

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