American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt said on Thursday that relations between the US and Taiwan were “in great shape.”
Burghardt said Taipei and Washington had restored their faith and trust in each other. One good example was the US authorities agreeing to let President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) “do anything” he wanted during his two stopovers in the US on his trip to Latin America. Another was the decision to allow a Republic of China Air Force C-130 cargo plane land on US soil during its mission to fly aid to Haiti, he said.
Burghardt made the remarks during a dinner party for Ma hosted by overseas expatriates in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
PHOTO: AFP
Burghardt said he did not want to talk about the weather because remarks he made on Monday when welcoming Ma to San Francisco had been misunderstood.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported that Burghardt’s remarks about rainy weather in San Francisco had been a metaphor for the condition of bilateral ties. Burghardt later said he found the report “humorous.”
There was laughter when Burghardt welcomed Ma in Los Angeles and said he was not going to say anything about the weather.
During the dinner party, Ma touted his cross-strait policy, saying both sides of the Taiwan Strait had restored a high-level of trust and that the cross-strait detente had also helped improve relations with the US and Japan.
Talking about his stopover in San Francisco on Tuesday, Ma said he not only went jogging in the city, but also visited a pharmaceutical company owned by overseas Taiwanese.
He also communicated with US lawmakers over the US beef controversy, adding that he was happy they now had a better understanding of the situation. He said he assured US lawmakers that his administration would allow US bone-in beef to enter the Taiwanese market in a speedy manner as long as it met regulations.
Ma told overseas expatriates that he met Dominican President Leonel Fernandez Reyna and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive in the Dominican Republic the morning before he arrived in Los Angeles.
His visit to Honduras was to acknowledge the Central American ally’s effort to return to democracy following recent elections, he said.
Ma also emphasized that Taiwan would play a more aggressive role on the diplomatic front. As his administration is pushing “honest diplomacy,” Ma said he wanted to show the world the country’s soft power.
Meanwhile, Ma told reporters that he had phoned first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青), who arrived in Los Angeles at about the same time to transit to Washington.
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