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President-elect unlikely to visit U.S. before taking office

ROC Central News Agency

2008-04-05 19:04:01

    Washington, April 4 (CNA) A former high-ranking U.S. official expressed doubt Friday that President-elect Ma Ying-jeou will be invited to visit Washington D.C. prior to his May 20 inauguration.

    Randy Schriver, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, made the comment at a workshop held by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, for discussions on Taiwan's just-concluded presidential election.

    Schriver, however, said he himself fully supports the president-elect making a trip to Washington before taking office.

    Asked to explain his doubt, Schriver, an expert in cross-Taiwan Strait affairs, said he made the comment based purely on his personal judgment rather than from "inside sources."

    He said the U.S. government will refrain from inviting the president-elect to visit Washington before his inauguration out of concern that such an invitation might set a precedent that could present unwanted consequences in the future.

    The U.S. government will think that a more appropriate time for Ma to come to the United States will be when he goes abroad after assuming office and can use the foreign trip to conduct a transit stop on U.S. soil, Schriver said.

    The former U.S. official suggested that Ma should engage in dialogue with Washington through phone calls or video conferences if he cannot come to the U.S. before his inauguration, or even use a trip to other country to make a stopover in the U.S. possible.

    At the workshop, Deputy Representative Chang Ta-tung of the U.S. office of the opposition Kuomintang and its political ally, the People First Party, said they are still working to organize a trip for Ma to Washington D.C. before his inauguration.

    Mentioning that the U.S. side has told the media it is pondering what to do about Ma's desire to visit, Chang expressed optimism, saying that "anything could happen."

    Asked whether there are discussions on replacing Washington with other U.S. cities, Chang said that "all I can say is that everyone is talking about the issue with delight."

    Top-ranking official exchanges between Taiwan and the United States have been a sensitive issue amid the absence of formal diplomatic relations and opposition from China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

(By Jorge Liu and Elizabeth Hsu)

ENDITEM/J