In an event rich in historic symbolism, first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) on Monday visited the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington. But she dismissed comparisons between today's Taiwan and the US created following the Declaration of Independence authored by Jefferson.
"Taiwan is already a country, it doesn't need a Declaration of Independence. And President Chen is not the founder of the country; he's the president," she told a press conference after laying a wreath at the memorial on the Tidal Basin south of the White House.
PHOTO: AFP
Accompanied by the superintendent of Washington's monuments and memorials, Arnold Goldstein, Wu passed through a 10-man honor guard of Taiwanese exchange students from the Virginia Military Institute, one of the nation's leading military preparatory academies.
Inside, Wu was shown part of the text of the Declaration, carved in marble, which contained the third US president's historic words that propelled the American colonies to rise up and free themselves from British rule.
One official noted that Jefferson was the first candidate from an opposition party to win the presidency in the young nation, as Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was the first non-KMT president of Taiwan.
In 1800, exactly two centuries before Chen's victory, Jefferson won election as a Democrat-Republican after 12 years of Federalist rule under George Washington and John Adams. He lost to Adams four years earlier and his election ushered in a quarter century of Democrat-Republican supremacy.
Symbolism was also evident on the classical circular colonnaded memorial's cornerstone, which was laid in 1939 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America's only wheelchair-bound president.
According to the guide who showed Wu around and pointed out the Declaration of Independence and other memorial features, Wu asked few if any questions.
When the guide at the end of the tour invited Wu to return, Wu shrugged matter-of-factly and said,"Oh, I've been here before. I know a lot about it," the guide told the Taipei Times.
Wu has no official events planned with the George W. Bush administration officials during what is billed as a private visit.
But as Wu prepared to lay the wreath at about 2:20pm, Marine One, the president's helicopter, arrived at the White House South Lawn, hovered for a while and landed.
Bush was scheduled to arrive at the White House at that time from a series of campaign stops in Trenton, New Jersey.
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