The US State Department has approved the appointment of Douglas H. Paal as the next head of the American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) Taipei office, sending the security clearance to AIT's Washing-ton office for final approval, sources say.
An announcement by AIT is expected in the coming weeks after the AIT board gives its formal approval, sources say. Paal is expected to be in Taipei by March, and could arrive after the Chinese New Year holiday.
The decision comes following months of delays brought about by questions raised by opponents of his appointment about public statements Paal has made in recent years about US policy toward Taiwan and China, and by questions surrounding the finances of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, a think tank he created in the early 1990s.
Those questions prolonged the normally extensive and complex background checks the FBI is required to perform on all senior government officials, despite the fact that AIT is formally a private organization dealing with Washington's "unofficial" relations with Taipei. The checks are required because Paal must get a security clearance before taking up the Taipei post. It was such a clearance that the State Department issued.
A graduate of Brown University with a degree in Asian history, Paal did graduate work at Harvard. Paal joined the State Department after graduation, and served at the US embassies in Beijing and Singapore. He also worked with the State Department's Policy Planning Staff.
Paal later joined the CIA as an Asia specialist and rose to the position of senior analyst.
In January 1987, he joined the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in charge of China, Taiwan and Asian affairs during the administration of former president Ronald Reagan. When George Bush took office in 1989, Paal was named the president's special assistant for national security affairs and the top person at the Asian section of the NSC.
After Bush failed to gain re-election, Paal began his Asia Pacific Policy Center, which he still runs.
Paal will replace Raymond Burghardt, who left Taipei Sept. 1 to become the US Ambassador to Vietnam.
Neither AIT nor the State Department would confirm or comment on Paal's appointment.
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