Obama’s VP pick of Biden familiar with our region

Hardly minutes after the choice was announced, U.S. observers concluded the selection was made primarily to bolster Obama’s perceived lack of foreign policy expertise vis-a-vis his Republican Party opponent John McCain.

Here in Taiwan, the observations made about Biden, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, were largely the same as what was said in the American media.

But many observers here have yet to point out that Senator Biden is one of the most knowledgeable U.S. senators when it comes to the Taiwan Strait.

After serving 36 years in the Senate and decades on the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has paid attention to issues regarding Taiwan since the days when former President Chiang Kai-shek ruled an authoritarian anti-communist government that was allied with the United States.

During a 2001 visit to Taiwan, undertaken in his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden compared U.S. engagement with our own former authoritarian government with Taiwan’s own present engagement with the communist mainland.

After meeting with newly elected President Chen Shui-bian in 2001, Biden predicted that mainland China would eventually have to open up to the rest of the world through a process of engagement, just as Taiwan did.

Senator Biden has consistently backed maintaining U.S. support for our government in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act.

However, Biden has also been careful not to encourage Taiwan independence backers here by insisting that while he opposes any use of force by Beijing against Taiwan, he also does not support acts seeking de jure independence for Taiwan, either.

If and when Barack Obama gets elected the next U.S. president and Biden plays an influential role similar to that of outgoing U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, we can expect more of the same policy from Washington that we have seen from every president since Jimmy Carter.

But that may be reassuring news to many people here, given the rough-and-tumble period of tensions this region has gone through over the past eight years of troublemaking by our former President Chen.

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