The US will continue to have “excellent relations” with Taiwan following the elections last Saturday, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Ray Burghardt said on Thursday.
“One of the things about American diplomacy, in dealing with democracies, is that we always maintain good relations with the ruling party and with the opposition party,” he said.
Answering questions following a Washington ceremony during which Taiwan made a US$1 million donation to fight Ebola, Burghardt said that Washington has an ongoing and good relationship with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
He said that keeping good relations with both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the DPP was “characteristic of our diplomacy” and had been true for in Taiwan for decades.
“When I was in Taiwan at the end of September, I had a long meeting with DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文),” he said. “I have known her for a very long time.”
“Of course we stay in touch with everybody in the KMT and [President] Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] government,” Burghardt said. “We are good at this; we have a lot of experience in dealing with competitive political situations and with countries with opposition parties and this is not an unusual situation.”
“I am very confident that the relationship will stay strong,” he said.
Asked to comment on the KMT’s losses in the elections, he said: “I think the result was more or less what had been predicted in the press... The extent of it was beyond what most observers had predicted.”
Asked if the US had a message for Tsai, particularly about maintaining cross-strait stability, Burghardt said: “I have the chance to talk to her privately. If we have some comments or suggestions or an exchange of thoughts, it is best done privately.”
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