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Veteran diplomat may be chosen to take reins at AIT

Former US State Department official Stephen Schlaikjer could be named as the new chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), political sources familiar with cross-strait affairs said Tuesday.

Schlaikjer, a 27-year veteran of the US Foreign Service who has held several posts, including director of the State Department Office of Chinese/Mongolian Affairs, is expected to take over the post which has been left unfilled for over four months since Therese Shaheen resigned in April.

The AIT is a Washington-based quasi-official body authorized to handle exchanges with Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Shortlisted

David Lee (李大維), Taiwan's representative to the US, said that Washington has not decided who will fill the AIT chairman post, but several candidates have been shortlisted, including Schlaikjer.

Lee said that although the AIT chairmanship appointment does not require passage by the Senate, the appointment has traditionally been made with the consent of the members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Against this backdrop, Lee said, there are still some variables present in the selection process before the US elections set for Nov. 2.

A 1974 graduate of Yale University, Schlaikjer has been a senior adviser to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission over the past three years.

Prior to that, he was a foreign policy adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark.

Packing

Diplomatic sources said on Tuesday that Schlaikjer has started packing to leave his US-China Economic and Security Review Commission office.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, established in 2000 under the authorization of Congress, regularly reviews the impact of US-China trade relations on the US' national security and whether the Taiwan Relations Act has been executed efficiently.

During his 27-year foreign service career, Schlaikjer has been posted in Taipei, Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong.

He was director of the Office of Chinese/Mongolian Affairs between 1998 to 2000.

In 1999, he traveled to Bei-jing on three occasions as a leading member of the US delegation that negotiated compensation in relation to to the mistaken NATO-US bombing of the China's embassy in Belgrade.

Political observers in the US capital have commented that Schlaikjer, a China-area specialist who speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese, would be a suitable choice for the AIT chairmanship.
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