Japan, on the eve of a visit by French President Jacques Chirac, said yesterday that the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China being pushed by France would be a "big problem" for Asian stability.
"Considering stability in Asia, the United States and Japan share the awareness that resuming arms exports would be a big problem," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the Japanese government spokesman, told reporters.
Hosoda said the issue of the arms embargo would likely be on the agenda when Chirac meets Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tomorrow.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to Tokyo last week, agreed with Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura that the two allies should cooperate to oppose EU moves to lift the embargo.
Chirac said Wednesday he still expected an agreement to lift the ban by the end of June, despite signs the 25-member EU bloc could delay its decision after China authorized the use of force to invade democratic Taiwan.
US lawmakers have threatened to levy punitive trade sanctions on European companies if the EU lifts the embargo, which was imposed after China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989.
The US has some 47,000 troops in Japan, most of them on Okinawa -- only 550km from Taiwan.
Hosoda said another issue that would be raised in talks with Chirac would be Europe's push to build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor in France despite a rival bid for the project by Tokyo.
A group of lawmakers from Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party yesterday sent him a petition urging him to be more outspoken on backing Japan's bid for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
"To meet this objective, we would like Prime Minister Koizumi to clearly tell President Chirac our country's position on the ITER during the Japan-France summit," said the petition, according to Kyodo News Agency.
Negotiations are deadlocked with the US and South Korea supporting Japan's offer to build the ITER in Rokkasho, a northern village near the Pacific Ocean, while China and Russia back the EU bid to put it in Cadarache, southern France.
The multibillion-dollar project, which would emulate the sun's nuclear fusion, is designed to one day generate inexhaustible supplies of electricity, but is not expected to be operational before 2050.
Chirac, accompanied by his wife Bernadette and French business leaders, will arrive in the western city of Osaka today to watch sumo wrestling and then head by train to Nagoya to see the World Exposition.
From there he will go to Tokyo tomorrow to meet Koizumi and on Monday he will lunch with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS