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Washington waits, watches

"Decisions on the challenges and recounts and those things, those are decisions for the people of Taiwan to make ... We're confident that both sides and their supporters will remain calm, and that they will use established legal mechanisms to resolve any questions about the election results."

Richard Boucher, US State Department spokesman

The US says it will not send congratulations to the winner of the presidential election until all of the challenges launched by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) have been resolved, a process that could take months.

It also says that neither the assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), nor the protest that followed the election would affect US-Taiwan relations or taint the image of Taiwan's democracy in the US.

The US disclosed that Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) telephoned Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday to talk about the election and other topics, but no details of the discussion were announced.

In Washington's first extensive comments on the election and the events surrounding it, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained the Bush administration's failure to congratulate Chen by saying it will wait for the legal processes in Taiwan to be completed.

"We're just comfortable waiting for those processes to work themselves out, and not for us to say who won, but for them to tell us who won," Boucher said.

In its earlier response to the election results, the State Department sent its congratulations to "the people of Taiwan," not to Chen specifically.

Boucher repeated that in his press briefing on Monday.

"We congratulate the Taiwan people for exercising their right to vote in the recent election, as they did in large numbers. I think this demonstrates once again that Taiwan is a vibrant democracy," he said.

Boucher also said the US has rejected Lien's request for Washington to send experts to Taiwan to investigate the assassination attempt and to intervene in his election challenges.

"We're very neutral in this," he said. "We think there are appropriate legal mechanisms in Taiwan to work out the appropriate determinations as regards to the election results, and I think that would apply to the shooting as well."

He refused to speculate on the US response should the government ask it to send experts to help in the shooting probe.

"I'd just have to see if that were to happen, if they were to invite somebody. I'm not aware that we've had anybody, at least on the government side, that's been invited at this point," Boucher said.

He reiterated Washington's earlier call for the people of Taiwan to remain calm.

"Decisions on the challenges and recounts and those things, those are decisions for the people of Taiwan to make," he said. "We're confident that both sides and their supporters will remain calm, and that they will use established legal mechanisms to resolve any questions about the election results."

Boucher said, "We're all watching this situation. We've been talking to people in Taiwan as well to make sure that we understand the views of various people there, including leaders of the two colors, of the two alliances.

"And so, it's been a matter that we've been following closely, and the Chinese and others have as well," he said.

He said in their discussion, Powell and Li "did talk about the elections and how things were evolving with it."

Regarding the meetings American Institute in Taiwan Director Douglas Paal held with Chen and Lien on Sunday, Boucher said the meetings were planned in advance, but could not say when.
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