President Ma Ying-jeou on the afternoon of June 19 met with a delegation from The Asia Foundation, an American non-profit organization. President Ma welcomed the visitors to Taiwan and their participation in a survey and conference on the realization of democracy in Asia.
President Ma said he recalls that at this time eight years ago, The Asia Foundation had sent officials to Taiwan for a visit and met with then President Chen Shui-bian, who had just taken office. He said he has a special recollection of the visit since at the time President Chen and the visitors discussed topics related to the "1992 Consensus."
President Ma furthermore said that this visit to Taiwan by The Asia Foundation comes shortly after the conclusion of the election for the Twelfth-term President and Vice President of the ROC (Taiwan). He said the realization of democracy on Taiwan has been widely discussed and that he hopes the scholars and experts sitting with him will be able to provide a critique of and suggestions for Taiwan's democratic development.
The Asia Foundation Vice President Dr. Gordon Hein, on behalf of the delegation, thanked President Ma for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with them and expressed gratitude for the warm reception they have received. He also presented a personal letter from The Asia Foundation President Douglas Bereuter to President Ma. Mr. Bereuter had previously served as a United States Congressman for 26 years and had the opportunity to meet President Ma a number of times at various conferences. As a result, he specially penned a letter to President Ma to extend his best wishes.
Dr. Hein also said that he is extremely pleased to come to Taiwan to take part in the international conference on "The State of Democratic Governance in Asia" that is being organized by the Program for East Asian Democratic Studies and jointly sponsored by The Asia Foundation and the Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science. He said that these events are bringing together representatives from Asian nations under one roof to discuss the problems facing Asian nations in their transition to democracy.
The delegation from The Asia Foundation included Foundation Vice Presidents Dr. Hein and Mr. Allen C. Choate; Dr. Steven Rood, country representative in the Philippines; Mr. William Infante, country representative in Mongolia; Ms. Nicole Sayres, deputy country representative in the Philippines; Ms. Yeling Tan, Singapore country consultant; Taiwan senior consultant Ms. Shen Tay-min and associate researcher Ms. Pina Wu. The group was accompanied to the Presidential Office in the afternoon by National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Professor Chu Yun-han and Assistant Professor Yu-tzung Chang, and Mr. Larry Diamond, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Also in attendance was Deputy Secretary-General to the President Yeh Ching-chuan.