US watching developments `very carefully,' envoy says

The US is concerned about recent political developments in Taiwan touching President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and is watching "very carefully," wanting to find out just what's happening in Taipei, Taiwan's de facto ambassador in Washington, David Lee (李大維), said on Monday.

The Bush administration is also keeping an eye on "what may happen next" in Taipei, especially in terms of Chen's moves to delegate political power to others, Lee told the Taiwanese press corps in Washington at his regular monthly "tea party" press conference.

Lee would not go into the details of the US concerns and attitudes toward the cascading series of ills confronting Chen and his family in recent weeks.

But he did say that he had been in regular contact with US officials over the past week and that the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan had made a series of reports to the US State Department on events in Taiwan.

Leading Taiwanese legislators will soon get their own insights into what Washington is thinking.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) will lead a delegation of 13 DPP lawmakers to Washington from June 20-22, and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) will lead 11 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party legislators from June 27-29, Lee said.