Former AIT office head tapped for top post

Raymond Burghardt, a former head of the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), has been tapped to serve as AIT chairman, reliable sources said yesterday.

Burghardt, a retired career diplomat, will fill the vacancy that has been left vacant by the resignation of Therese Shaheen in April last year. Burghardt's new appointment has yet to be officially confirmed. He did not return phone calls from reporters yesterday.

Burghardt served as the AIT Taipei office director, or the de facto US ambassador to Taiwan, from 1999 to 2001. He then took over as US ambassador to Vietnam until last year. He assumed his current post as a department chief at the East-West Center in Hawaii early this year.

Sources said that Burghardt will retain his East-West Center post after assuming the AIT chairmanship.

The AIT, which has offices in Arlington, Virginia, and in Taiwan, is a nonprofit, private corporation established in 1979 to handle US-Taiwan relations in the absence of diplomatic ties. The US State Department provides a large part of the institute's funding and guidance.

Apparently because its function as an intermediary body between Taiwan and the US has gradually diminished, the sources said Burghardt will continue to reside in Hawaii and that the day-to-day affairs at the AIT headquarters in Arlington will be handled by Deputy Managing Director Barbara Jane Schrage.

Before taking up his AIT Taipei post, Burghardt served as consul-general in Shanghai and as deputy chief of the US embassies in Manila and Seoul. He has also worked in Beijing, Hong Kong and the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.

Burghardt ended his Taipei tenure at a time when Taiwan-US relations were in the best shape for many years. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) decorated him with the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon in recognition of his contribution to the promotion of Taiwan-US relations.