Even before Biden was brought on board, however, Senator Obama had already begun making contacts with our government, such as when he sent a cable congratulating our current President Ma Ying-jeou when he was elected last March.

Now that Obama is ready to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination at the party’s national convention taking place this week, all eyes will be on Senator McCain to see who he will choose as his running mate.

Given that McCain himself possesses a great deal of foreign policy expertise and a keen interest in the Asian region, we do not expect to see as much attention paid to McCain’s vice presidential nominee when the announcement comes, most likely sometime next week.

But with the Beijing Olympics just completed and talks between Taipei and Beijing expected to resume before year’s end, we can expect that both Obama and McCain might discuss the issue of Taiwan when they meet for presidential debates several weeks down the road.

Even if they do not address Taiwan or China-related issues during the debates, we fully expect that both candidates will take a conservative stance toward this region during their campaigns.

This is because moderation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has reduced tensions in the region, directing American public attention toward other sensitive regions such as war-torn Georgia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

While people in Taiwan generally do not favor one American political party over the other, there has been a great deal of interest here in the campaign of Senator Obama, who came out of nowhere to snatch the nomination away from one of America’s most powerful political names.

While people here still do not know very much about Obama’s politics, they are fascinated by his charisma and ability to motivate idealistic young people and disillusioned voters to join the political process and back his campaign.

Surely many politicians here in Taiwan are carefully studying Obama’s methods of cultivating support and will be following his every move as the November election draws closer.

Regardless of what it produces, this massive curiosity has stood in stark contrast to widespread disappointment with our own democratic political process, which in recent weeks has been further tarnished by revelations of scandal reaching the highest office.

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