Lee: You know, TECRO, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, is the new name, changed from the Coordination Council of Northern American Affairs. Who can relate that name with Taiwan? TECRO is quite an improvement, but that means it is not impossible for us to upgrade the name little by little.
Even though this will not change in a very short period of time, we certainly will communicate with the administration about this. People refer to Taiwan all the time. What's wrong with Taiwan? Taiwan is a geographic location, it is the name of a beautiful island. All the media across the globe refer to Taiwan as Taiwan. So it should be fair. The name Taiwan does not necessarily mean Taiwan independence. So, some day we can hope the administration might review this. We know it will take time, but we're patient. When the time is appropriate, we will convey this message to the new administration.
TT: What are your expectations of the Bush presidency in terms of cross-strait relations and Taiwan policy generally. Specifically, for instance, your inability to discuss things directly with the US government.
Lee: We are talking about high-level exchanges. This is another area that we would like to work on.
TT: Who can you talk with now?
Lee: The Assistant Secretary of State.
TT: But not defense?
Lee: The only two departments that we have restrictions on are the Department of Defense and the State Department. As for the rest, the energy secretary visits Taipei, the transportation secretary visits Taipei. So not every Cabinet level is restricted. But we'd like first to see greater frequency, and second, to try to soften the restraints.
TT: From your meetings with these men, what are your expectations of the Bush administration in Taiwan policy?
Lee: We hope that the Bush administration appreciates that the stability and security of Taiwan are not only in the interests of Taiwan, but also in the interests of the US, Japan and the whole region. Japan is the closest, the best ally of the US. It's a very important world economy. So Japan is very important to US interests.
Taiwan is very important to Japan's interests. So in that sense, we hope that the new administration will review the policy and improve the relationship as a whole. But, specifically, I will just list a few areas: arms sales, participation in the international arena, high-level exchanges and better treatment of our senior officials like the president during their visits here. I believe, even though we can see only the assistant secretaries, I believe that sometime we will have a chance on some occasion to see more higher-ranking officials in certain circumstances. But we will not give our friends in the new administration a hard time. On the other hand, we'd like to see improvements. We feel Taiwan deserves it. We feel we have worked so hard for it.
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