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.In terms of foreign policy credentials, adding Biden to his team makes Obama more of a mainstream candidate whose policies can be predicted.

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.