TAIPEI, May 12 (AP) -- Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian arrived home Friday to a rousing welcome after a weeklong trip to Latin America overshadowed by friction with Washington.

Chen had been offered stopovers in Alaska on his way to and from Paraguay and Costa Rica, but turned them down, on the grounds that the northern state's relative isolation was a sleight to his dignity.

During earlier Latin American trips, Chen had been able to stop in major U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles and Houston, where he met with senior U.S. politicians.

At Taipei's international airport Friday, Chen said the disagreement on the American transit issue wouldn't affect relations with Washington.

"Despite not transiting in the U.S., we have kept open excellent channels of communications," he said. "We share a high-level consensus about our mutual interests and about over how we should cooperate in the future."

Chen arrived at Taipei's international airport Friday afternoon after a four-and-a-half-hour flight from the Indonesian island of Batam, the latest surprise stop on his journey back from Latin America.

On Wednesday, Chen stopped in Libya, which like Indonesia, is an ally of rival China.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing still considers the self-ruled island to be Chinese territory, and opposes anything that gives it the trappings of sovereignty -- such as letting its leaders travel the globe freely.

Taiwan waited to announce the location for Chen's stopovers until he had landed, lest China try to interfere, officials said.

"China has resorted to all means possible to bar us from walking out," Chen said. "But the more they tried to suppress us, the more we will be united and the more confidence we will gather.... We will never be beaten."

Near the airport Friday, about a thousand Chen supporters held up banners saying "Well done, President Chen Shui-bian" and shouted slogans of encouragement. His Democratic Progressive Party said the stopovers in Beijing's allies amounted to diplomatic breakthroughs.