TSAI-TRUMP:Stephen Yates discussed the telephone chat in an interview with Voice of America, while former AIT director William Stanton spoke about it on a show in Taipei
Taipei Times
Date: Dec 06, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) congratulatory telephone call to US president-elect Donald Trump
Stephen Yates, former deputy national security adviser to then-US vice president Dick Cheney, speaks in Washington on July 21. Photo: CNA
on Friday has been described by two former US officials as a positive development in the ties between the two nations.
The call not only carried symbolic weight, but also had strategic significance for the incoming US administration regarding trade talks with Taiwan, said Stephen Yates, an expert on Asia who served as deputy national security adviser to former US vice president Dick Cheney.
In an interview on Sunday on Voice of America, Yates said he was certain that during the call, Trump addressed Tsai as president of Taiwan because she is Taiwan’s president, a reality that some people in the US and China deny.
Trump knows well how to separate the symbolic and the substantial meanings of the congratulatory call, said Yates, chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, who is scheduled to visit Taiwan this week to meet with business clients. [FULL STORY]
