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Washington, Jan. 20 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian has written to new U.S. President George W. Bush asking him to allow the sale of Aegis-class frigates to the Republic of China to help safeguard peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, sources said Saturday.

President Chen asked Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng, who represented Chen at Bush's inauguration, to convey his personal letter to Bush via the American Institute in Taiwan, a quasi-official body authorized by the U.S. government to handle relations with the ROC in the absence of diplomatic ties, the sources said.

Wang, who had already left Washington for home, would not divulge any details of Chen's letter to Bush. He only said President Chen called for further reinforcement of substantive ROC-U.S. relations.

Nevertheless, several members of the ROC delegation attending the U.S. presidential transition, including Kuomintang Legislator Lee Hsien-jen and New Party Legislator Lai Shih-pao, confirmed that the key message of Chen's letter was a pitch for U.S. sale of the highly advanced Aegis-class frigates to Taiwan.

According to Lai, President Chen expressed his hope in the letter that the United States will reconsider its plan to either lease or sell four Kidd-class missile frigates to Taiwan to meet the island's defense needs.

Noting that the Kidd-class destroyers may not be sufficiently powerful and sophisticated to meet Taiwan's demand, Lai said that to his knowledge, the ROC government is still actively seeking to acquire the U.S.-made Aegis-class frigates.

The Clinton administration, which just stepped down from power, withheld its consent to Taiwan's purchase of the Aegis-class frigates at the 2000 Taipei-Washington arms deal meeting. At that time, U.S. officials said they had to make a further review of the Taiwan navy's integrated combat capabilities before deciding whether to agree to the ROC's Aegis-class warship procurement request.

U.S. military sources said even if the Bush administration agrees to sell Aegis-class frigates at this year's Taipei-Washington military meeting, construction of the warships will not get underway until after 2008. This means that the ROC navy would not acquire the state-of-the-art warships for at least a decade. (By Herman Pan and Sofia Wu)