Relations between U.S.-Taiwan at two-decade high: top envoy

Speaking during a luncheon with reporters and editors of the Washington Times at Taiwan’s Twin Oaks mansion in suburban D.C., Taipei’s Representative to the United States C.J. Chen is reported to have commented, that U.S.-Taiwan relations are the best they have been since Washington terminated diplomatic relations with the island in favor of Beijing in 1979.

“The Bush administration treats us very well. They treat us like friends,” Chen told The Washington Times, according to a report in the paper on Tuesday. He also noted, that Taiwan was seen as something of a “troublemaker” by some members of President Clinton’s administration.

While President Chen Shui-bian has so far been unable to visit the U.S. capital, due to opposition from mainland China, U.S. President George W. Bush does “respect” Chen, according to Taipei’s chief representative, and did allowed him to make a brief visit to Houston, Texas, in June 2001 on his way back from Latin America. Plus, Taiwan’s first lady Wu Shu-jen made a ground-breaking visit to Washington in Sept. 2002 and in March last year Defense Minister Tang Yiau-ming became the first senior defense official to travel to the U.S. since formal diplomatic relations were severed.

On the issue of Taipei-Beijing relations, C.J. Chen, a former Kuomintang lawmaker, according to the Times’ report stated, that the mainland authorities still claim that “Taiwan is part of China, and we do not agree.”

“If you ask me, I say we are sovereign and independent,” the report quotes Chen as saying.

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