Taipei Times
Date: Dec 04, 2016
By: Nadia Tsao and William Hetherington / Staff reporter in Washington, with staff writer

A number of Republican politicians lauded the telephone call between President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and US president-elect Donald Trump as an important development in Taiwan-US relations.

The conversation on Friday was the first publicly reported call between a Taiwanese leader and a US president or president-elect since 1979, when Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific chairman Matt Salmon called the conversation “historic” and said a strong statement was made through the two leaders speaking.

“I commend Trump for reaching out to the democratically elected president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen,” Salmon said in a statement. “America has always been a champion of democratic values and individual freedoms and I applaud the president-elect for making a strong statement in support of those values around the world.”    [FULL  STORY]