New DPP chief Tsai Ing-wen in US on first foreign trip

Taiwan's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party chairwoman, Dr Tsai Ing-wen, has arrived in the US for a 12-day visit, her first foreign trip since being nominated by her party to stand in the January presidential election.

She was greeted by more than 100 supporters at the airport in Los Angeles.

A focus point of her trip is whether she will further explain her cross-strait policy, which she has summed up as being "to maintain the status quo".

However, many, including President Ma Ying-jeou, have asked her to clarify what she means by that and how that goal is to be achieved if neither she nor her party recognises the "1992 consensus" that Ma and his Kuomintang consider to form the basis of cross-strait negotiations and agreements.

The reference is to a consensus said to have been reached between the KMT and the Communist Party of China in 1992 that there is only one China and that each side can interpret in its own way what that means.

Tsai's 12-day trip will take her to six cities in the United States: Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, New York, Houston and San Francisco.