President-elect Ma Ying-jeou has promised to defuse tensions and expand trade with China. As always, the United States did not take sides in Saturday’s vote. But President George W. Bush said later in a statement that the election “provides a fresh opportunity” for Taiwan and China to begin peacefully settling their differences. The two sides split in 1949 during China’s civil war.

Taiwan potentially is the most sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has threatened to attack should the self-governing island make its de facto independence formal. Washington has hinted that it would go to war to protect Taiwan. Outgoing President Chen Shui-bian’s pro-independence policies have frustrated the Bush administration and raised worries of a clash between Taiwan and China.

“There’s no question that everyone in the Bush administration is greatly relieved,” said Jonathan Pollack, professor of Asian studies at the U.S. Naval War College. Ma’s election means the United States now will have a prospective partner, “not someone who was doing his levelheaded best to either defy the United States or potentially cause trouble for the United States.”

On Saturday, Ma soundly defeated Frank Hsieh to end eight years of control by Chen’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

Ma’s main campaign promise was to reverse Chen’s policy of emphasizing Taiwan’s political separateness from China; he says he will work to take fuller advantage of the mainland’s economic boom.

Ma’s Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, had used a slender legislative majority to block many of Chen’s policy initiatives, including the purchase of a multibillion dollar (euro) package of American weapons. Nationalist leaders said the purchase would have thrust Taiwan into a no-win arms race with Beijing.

Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s top diplomat in Washington, said in an interview that the U.S. and Taiwan have strengthened security and economic ties in the face of worry over China’s boost in military spending.

Wu, who was appointed by Chen and in the absence of official diplomatic relations is called Taiwan representative, said the United States “has been strained because of the crises in North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Darfur and many other regions” where the U.S. needs the support of China, a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council.

“The United States’ attention has been spread thin, and it’s been quite difficult for Taiwan to let the current administration understand that China has been trying harder and harder to squeeze Taiwan’s international participation,” Wu said. “That has been a fundamental strain between the Bush administration and the outgoing administration in Taiwan.”

Meanwhile, a new report is calling for “better, more routine high-level contact” between Taiwan and the United States. Junior U.S. officials, not high-level envoys, carry messages to Taiwan’s president; that “no longer serves U.S. interests and may very well be dangerous,” according to the report by Dan Blumenthal, a former China and Taiwan specialist at the Pentagon, and Randall Schriver, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs in the Bush administration.

“Absent frequent authoritative contact, small crises grow and misunderstandings multiply,” said the report.

Current U.S. guidelines ban Taiwan’s president from visiting Washington; Wu and his colleagues are barred from the State Department and White House and must meet senior U.S. administration officials in restaurants and coffee shops.

White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters Monday that Bush was pleased with the election. When asked if the United States would welcome a visit by Ma before his inauguration, Perino said, “Let me check on that in terms of scheduling.”

Later, the White House said a Ma visit is “not on the schedule.”