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Bipartisan U.S. support 'top objective' for Taiwan: Presidential Office

ROC Central News Agency

10/31/2020 07:46 PM

Taipei, Oct. 31 (CNA) The Presidential Office said Saturday that maintaining U.S. support is its top objective in Taiwan-U.S. relations, days before Americans head to the polls Tuesday to select a new president.

Speaking at a press conference, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) described Taiwan-U.S. relations as the country's "top foreign policy priority."

"Regardless of the results of the U.S. elections, Taiwan will work to maintain the support of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, which is its top objective as it promotes the development of Taiwan-U.S. relations," he said.

Chang's remarks came after Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement disputing a recent Washington Post article that alleged that the government of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had shown a clear preference for the U.S. Republican Party.

The ministry denied a claim in the article that Taiwanese officials apologized to Democrats after they were edited out of a video of congratulatory messages for Tsai's second-term inauguration in May in favor of Republican well-wishers.

The video in question, the ministry said, includes a bipartisan group of U.S. members of Congress, including Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch and Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel.

Regarding an incident this week, also mentioned in the article, in which the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the U.S. re-tweeted a post by U.S. first lady Melania Trump appealing for votes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the ministry said the post had been shared in error and was subsequently deleted.

MOFA's statement did not directly address the larger premise of the article, which said that Tsai's team had struggled to make inroads with the administration of former President Barack Obama during her run for Taiwan's presidency in 2011, and was concerned that the U.S. would adopt a less confrontational approach to China if Democrat Joe Biden were elected president.

Instead, it said that Taiwan "has always sought to maintain a bipartisan balance in its relations with the U.S. and will continue to operate on this principle to deepen the Taiwan-U.S. partnership in the future."

(By Chen Yun-yu and Matthew Mazzetta)

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