U.S. approves Taiwan visitor's transit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The United States will give Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian a visa to transit on his way to Latin America later this month, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday.

"He will be (able to transit) and no reason he shouldn't," Powell said in an interview with CNN.

"We will try to reassure the authorities in Beijing that there is nothing in the president's transit that they should find disturbing or in any way modifying or changing or casting any doubt on the policy that exists between us and the People's Republic of China," he said.

China strongly objects to transits by Taiwanese leaders in the belief that it amounts to a form of recognition of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a renegade province.

A source at Chen's office said last week Chen plans to watch a baseball game, tour a museum and visit Wall Street on his way to and from Latin America.

The previous U.S. administration restricted Taiwanese leaders in transit to their planes or hotels and did not permit them to attend such public events.

The Taiwanese source described this as "a very big breakthrough."

"This time, the U.S. side extended the Taiwan side a lot of courtesy," she added.

But Washington has required that Chen not make statements or give media interviews while in transit, the source said.

Chen planned to visit El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay and Honduras between May 21 and June 4. He was scheduled to stop in New York on his way out and Houston on the way home.

The transmit visa is expected to anger the Chinese government but China experts in Taiwan said the protests would be more ritualistic than substantial.

It comes on top of many other Chinese grievances against the United States, such as the Bush administration's pledge to sell Taiwan a long list of weapons and its refusal to stop surveillance flights off the Chinese coast.

Powell said he was confident however that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing would negotiate within a few days a deal allowing the United States to take back the surveillance plane that made an emergency landing on Hainan island on April 1 after a collision with a Chinese fighter plane.

The Chinese pilot was killed, and the Chinese held the 24-member U.S. air crew for 11 days until Washington said it was sorry.

"I'm quite sure that in the next few days we will find a way to resolve this that will be satisfactory to both sides," Powell said.

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