Tue, Jan 30, 2007 page3

• AIT chairman says US relations with Taiwan are strong

  • STAFF WRITER
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  Regardless of the state of Washington-Taipei, Washington-Beijing or cross-strait ties, US-China-Taiwan relations are stable, American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt said on Sunday.

  Communication between Taipei and Washington has been close and smooth, Burghardt said at a news conference held prior to a lecture dinner hosted by a Bay Area Taiwanese chamber of commerce.

  Taiwan has economic strength and is an important trading partner of the US, Burghardt said. Besides bilateral business cooperation, Taiwan's achievement in democratization is even more worthy of respect, he said, adding that the nation's strenuous efforts to accelerate democratization have strengthened the US commitment to supporting Taiwan.

  Burghardt, who accompanied President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on a flight from San Francisco to Nicaragua early this month, said the US government does its best to accommodate Taiwanese leaders' requests for transit stops in the US as long as their requests are reasonable.

  He said Chen's most recent US transit stops during his visit to Nicaragua earlier this month were very smooth, adding that Chen met with several US academics and former US officials, including former US secretary of defense William Perry, during his stopovers.

  During the talks at Chen's presidential suite during his 16-hour transit stop in San Francisco, Perry told Chen that the US government had done the right thing when it dispatched two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait in response to China's missile tests in the area in March 1996 ahead of Taiwan's presidential election because the election was important to the governments of both the US and Taiwan.

  Burghardt said that the US' stance that it expects Chen to stick faithfully to his "five noes" pledge made in his inauguration speech in May 2000, namely, that as long as Beijing has no intention of using military force against Taiwan, he will not declare independence, not change Taiwan's name, not add the state-to-state theory into the Constitution, not promote a referendum to change the status quo on independence or unification and not scrap the National Unification Guidelines during his term of office.

  Meanwhile, on Chen's plans to enable Taiwan to enter the UN under the title of "Taiwan," Burghardt said he did not think it was a realistic idea, at least not in the current international political environment.

  He said that this kind of issue, due to sovereignty disputes between Taipei and Beijing, was not an issue for the US to tackle.

  Burghardt also said that Washington was keeping its "one China" policy and added that the US would not play the role of "intermediary" between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

  He also declined to comment on the presidential election next year, saying that it was Taiwan's own business and it was still too early to tell which party would field who in the race.

  Burghardt is expected to pay a visit to Taiwan after the Lunar New Year in a bid to push for the passage of the long-stalled arms procurement bill.
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