Lee Teng-hui (
Lee's travel plans are sensitive because he is a former president and because he stands for Taiwan's independent sovereignty. He defined cross-strait relations as "special state-to-state" in nature and refused to accept Beijing's "one country, two sys-tems" formula. Beijing hates Lee with a passion. The fact that Lee's travels will bring the voice of the people of Taiwan to the international community irks Beijing no end.
Lee's last trip to Japan in April last year was made for medical reasons -- although he managed to get quite a bit of sightseeing in as well. Despite intense pressure from Beijing, then prime minister Yoshiro Mori agreed to approve Lee's visa application. Lee went to Japan as an ordinary citizen of Taiwan and got a chance to view the cherry blossoms.
Despite his low-profile approach, he was welcomed by the Japanese public, many of whose members see in him the archetypal Japanese spirit that they rarely come across in their own country. Lee's writings and biographies are hugely popular in Japan, where the public are curious about a man who has been Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese at different periods of his life and who appears to have integrated into his personality Japanese, Chinese and Western education. His political and economic achievements as a president also spark interest. The affinity shown by ordinary Japanese toward Lee has further deepened Beijing's hostility.
While Taiwan and Japan do not have diplomatic relations they certainly have very close trade, political and security ties. Interaction in the private sector also runs deep. Lee's visa application should be a simple matter.
As an ordinary citizen Lee poses no security threat to Japan and has a legitimate reason to visit. He abided by the terms Tokyo laid out for his previous visit and did not do anything to make the Japanese government unhappy. Japan is fully justified in issuing him a visa. The only stumbling block is Beijing's attitude.
But issuing a visa is about Japan's exercise of its own sovereignty. Should Tokyo worry about what Beijing thinks? After all, nothing really happened after Tokyo offended Beijing by giving Lee a visa last year. Would China really forgive Tokyo's earlier "lapse" if it were to reject a second visa application? Only by issuing Lee a visa for a short, private visit can Japan truly exercise its sovereignty and prove that it suffers no Sino-phobia.
Without harassment from the pro-China faction, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should be able to view Lee's matter for what it is -- a visa application from a private -- if not exactly ordinary -- citizen.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS