Outspoken Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso hailed Taiwan as a law-abiding "country," triggering a new protest from Beijing.
Aso told a parliamentary committee that Japan and Taiwan shared democracy and a market economy.
"Its democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country," Aso said. "In various ways it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan."
But he said he recognized the official stance of Japan which declared Beijing the only legitimate government of China when it normalized relations in 1972.
"Although I know there will be a problem with calling [Taiwan] a country, firm relations between Japan and Taiwan ... should be maintained" within the 1972 treaty, he said.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry denied Aso was breaking new ground, and said the minister corrected his comments later in the committee session, calling Taiwan "a region."
``There is no change in Japan's position on the Japan-China agreement of 1972 that stated there is one China,'' said Keiji Kamei, of the China division in the Foreign Ministry.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang (
"We are quite shocked at the remarks made by the highest official in the Japanese foreign service, which breaches the Sino-Japanese joint declaration," Qin told a regular press briefing.
"We are strongly protesting against this rude intervention in China's internal affairs," he said.
Aso has ruffled Chinese feathers repeatedly in recent months -- most recently by accusing Beijing of using female spies to seduce Japanese diplomats and later blackmail them to obtain classified information.
He also triggered protests from Beijing by calling China a significant threat in Asia, and suggesting that Taiwan's high educational standards were a legacy of Tokyo's 1895-1945 colonial rule.
In addition, on Wednesday Japan's Foreign Ministry denied a report that Aso told US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that Tokyo would need nuclear weapons against a possible North Korean threat.
Aso made the remarks at a meeting on Dec. 2 last year in Washington, the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun said in its edition published yesterday.
"India and Pakistan also have them and so does North Korea. If North Korea continues its nuclear development, even Japan would need to arm itself with nuclear weapons," Aso was quoted by the magazine as saying.
"The report is not true," vice foreign minister Katsutoshi Kaneda told reporters yesterday.
Pyongyang claims to have nuclear weapons, though it hasn't performed any known tests. On Wednesday, it shocked Japan and other nations by test-firing two short-range missiles.
also see story:
Seoul confirms N Korean missile tests
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS