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US congressional team planning a visit in January

"This has nothing to do with membership in the United Nations. It has everything to do with the health and well-being of the population of the world."

Shelley Berkley, co-chairman of the US Congressional Taiwan Caucus

A group of US Congress members, including some of Taiwan's strongest supporters in the legislative body, are planning an official visit to Taiwan in January, Representative Shelley Berkley, the new co-chairman of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, said on Wednesday.

Eight to 10 members of the House of Representatives, including members of the caucus and the Foreign Affairs Committee, are expected to make the trip, Berkley said during a Capitol reception for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

The visit will likely take place on Jan. 4 to Jan. 10 during a lull in the congressional schedule, Berkley told reporters, adding that it was not meant to coincide with the Legislative Yuan elections, which will be held shortly after the delegation leaves.

The group is also planning to visit at least one other country in the region, she said.

Even if those visits do not materialize, the group will go to Taiwan anyway, she said.

Asked by reporters about congressional support for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) efforts to get Taiwan into the UN, Berkley described it as "dicey," or uncertain.

"I think we should be concentrating on membership in the World Health Organization. I think we should work on the first step [toward participation in international organizations] first, and then work on the second step [such as UN membership]," she said.

"I am appalled by the fact that Taiwan does not have membership in the World Health Organization," she said.

"This has nothing to do with membership in the United Nations. It has everything to do with the health and well-being of the population of the world," she said.

"The very thought that an economic power and a nation such as Taiwan is excluded because of political reasons is absurd to me," she said.

Commenting on a resolution she introduced in the House in May urging the administration to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan, Berkley said it would be "quite a while" before the congressional committee charged with such matters can take it up.

Berkley is a member of the trade subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, which would be the first congressional panel to take up the Taiwan FTA issue.

"I think it will be a very long process" to secure an FTA with Taiwan, she said.

She said she had not spoken with the Ways and Means chairman, Representative Charles Rangel, so she did not know whether he would support an FTA.

But she noted that Rangel and the committee are "wrestling with other" FTAs that have already been negotiated and must be ratified by Congress.
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