TAIWAN CONSIDERING U.S. REQUEST ON BURMA

UNCLAS TAIPEI 000160 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EFIN KCRM PTER IMF TW CN SUBJECT: TAIWAN CONSIDERING U.S. REQUEST ON BURMA MEMBERSHIP IN APG REF: SECSTATE 6134 ¶1. (SBU) AIT delivered reftel talking points to Taiwan Ministry of Justice Department of Prosecutorial Affairs Director Shawn Tsai (Ching-hsiung) on January 17. Tsai said Taiwan would give full consideration to the U.S. message when it came time to vote on Burma's application for membership in the APG. ¶2. (SBU) Tsai also mentioned that, in spite of the fact that Taiwan was now on the APG Steering Committee and played an active role in APG events, it had been excluded from APG training in mutual evaluation held in Singapore on December 5-6 because that training was held at an IMF facility. Taiwan is not an IMF member and China objected to its use of the facility. Taiwan agreed to a compromise wherein another training session will be arranged solely for its officials in June of this year. ¶3. (SBU) In the past year, there have been several attempts by China to exclude Taiwan from events which do not require statehood and to which Taiwan has been invited. AIT believes that in order to be consistent with the U.S. policy of supporting Taiwan's participation in international organizations that do not require statehood, when pressure from China forces the host of an event to exclude Taiwan, the U.S. should support relocating the event to a neutral location where all invitees are welcome. PAAL