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2012 ELECTIONS:
Fourth Congress member warns on US interference
By William Lowther / Staff Reporter in Washington
A fourth member of Congress has written to US President Barack Obama warning
against Washington interfering in Taiwan’s elections.
Representative Robert Andrews, a Democrat, told Obama in a Christmas letter: “I
hope you will work to ensure that the administration projects the strictest
degree of political neutrality with regard to Taiwan’s upcoming election, so as
not to inadvertently influence the outcome with its words or actions.”
Andrews was reacting to incidents in which the Obama administration appears to
have been favoring and supporting the re-election campaign of President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九).
The most prominent of these incidents was the US Department of State’s move this
month toward granting Taiwan visa-waiver status after years of delay. Observers
fear that some voters could interpret the move as a signal of Washington’s
approval for Ma.
Insiders say that the Obama administration wants Ma to win because he is likely
to cause the least amount of difficulty for pro-China US policies and do little
or nothing to bolster Taiwan’s democratic independence.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican and the chairwoman of the House
of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown, a
Democrat, and Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican, have also written to
the White House and the US Department of State urging the administration to be
strictly neutral.
Andrews reminded Obama that US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell
recently said that no party in Taiwan had a monopoly on good relations with the
US and that Washington would work closely and cooperatively with “whomever is
elected.”
“As we look forward to congratulating the people of Taiwan on the successful
completion of another election, I think it is also wise to remind ourselves that
the true mark of a mature and consolidated democracy is its ability to carry out
a peaceful transfer of power in the event of a victory by the opposition,”
Andrews wrote.
Bob Yang (楊英育), president of the Washington-based Formosan Association for
Public Affairs, said: “These recent letters from members of Congress demonstrate
that there is genuine and widespread concern in Congress about the need to guard
against potential attempts to undermine the integrity of the ongoing election
campaign and the voting process, and to interfere with a peaceful transfer of
power after the election in the event of a victory by the opposition party in
Taiwan.”
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