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Washington envoy in Taiwan to promote US exports

Other News Materials 13 September 2011 12:42 (UTC +04:00)
The assistant US commerce secretary will visit Taiwan Tuesday, Washington's most senior envoy to the island in five years as China seeks to squelch contact between the two.
Washington envoy in Taiwan to promote US exports

The assistant US commerce secretary will visit Taiwan Tuesday, Washington's most senior envoy to the island in five years as China seeks to squelch contact between the two.

Suresh Kumar planned to meet business leaders and President Ma Ying-jeou to promote US product labels, the de facto US embassy in Taipei said, DPA reported.

"The US government knows full well that Taiwan is one of the countries that has the capacity to buy more of its exports," said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University.

"I don't think China will raise hell with Ma's government over an issue like this."

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory. Officials in Beijing discourage their more than 170 diplomatic allies including the United States from making formal contact with the island.

But Taiwan's Nationalist Party, which once ruled all of China before losing the civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists and fleeing to Taiwan in the 1940s, has defused tension with Beijing over the past t

Kumar is also visiting other US trade partners in Asia to promote US exports.

He is not expected to announce new talks on a trade framework agreement, as urged by Taiwan, or respond to its request for 66 advanced F-16 fighter jets, a sale that would outrage Beijing.

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