The next chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) is to visit Taiwan periodically to bring Washington’s views and will also play a role in US policy on Taiwan, just like his predecessors did, outgoing AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt said on Thursday.
Burghardt made the comments in response to a question regarding what role his successor would play in Taiwan-US relations.
Burghardt is expected to retire later this year and James Moriarty, a former senior director for Asia at the US National Security Council during the administration of former US president George W. Bush, has reportedly been tapped as his successor.
Washington has yet to make an official announcement on the appointment.
Citing Kurt Campbell, former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Burghardt said the chairman of the AIT is the US-based representative to Taiwan, while the director of the AIT office in Taipei is the Taiwan-based representative.
“This is an unusual arrangement required by the unusual way in which we carry out our relationship with Taiwan and that will continue to be the case,” he said.
Burghardt said he felt honored to have been able to contribute to US-Taiwan relations over 12-and-a-half years, including the time he was in Taipei as AIT director.
He said Taiwan-US relations have made a lot of progress in the past few years, mostly due to an approach by the administration of US President Barack Obama to treat Taiwan with respect and to recognize that Taiwan can make a contribution to the world.
“It’s not simply some sort of footnote to our relations with mainland China,” he said. “It’s an important trade relationship, an important people-to-people relationship, security relationship, relationship with a government that has a great capability in areas like public health that can make a contribution to the world.”
On the call for Washington to review its policy toward Taiwan with the goal of cementing US ties with China, Burghardt said he did not think that suggestion “even qualifies as a minority view,” because only three or four “obscure academics” who hold that opinion. He said he did not see any support in Washington for that thinking.
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