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AIT chair to visit Taiwan this week

American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt will visit Taiwan later this week and is expected to meet with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) during his stay, officials said yesterday.

AIT spokesman David Miller yesterday confirmed that Burghardt, who is based in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he concurrently serves as director for the East and West Center, will make his first visit to Taiwan as AIT chairman later this week.

"He will be meeting with a wide range of people while he is here," Miller said.

However, Miller declined to comment on Burghardt's itinerary in Taiwan, saying "we do not plan to make the details of his schedule public."

It will be Burghardt's first visit to Taiwan since he took office as the AIT chairman on Feb. 25.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials yesterday said it was expected that Burghardt would meet the president during his stay to gather views on Taiwan's latest domestic developments.

Ministry Spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said Burghardt had expressed a wish to visit Taiwan since becoming AIT chairman in February.

"The timing of his visit has nothing to do with coinciding with any event here. There is no need to read too much into that," Lu said.

The Chinese-language Liberty Times newspaper, the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times, yesterday quoted a Taiwanese government source as saying that Washington had expressed concern to Taipei regarding the recent political crisis related to a corruption scandal involving the president's son-in-law, but had emphasized that the US would not interfere in Taiwan's domestic politics.

The Central News Agency quoted a US State Department source as saying that Washington hoped that Chen could complete the remainder of his term.

Director of foreign ministry's Department of North American Affairs Leo Lee (李成然) said that the ministry had not received any information from the US on whether or not it wished Chen to complete his term.

Quoting a US State Department statement last Saturday, Lee said that the US believes Taiwan's democracy is still strong and secure, and that its policy toward Taiwan remained the same.
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