Japan talked tough on Friday in an emotional row with South Korea, with lawmakers calling on Seoul to end its “illegal occupation” of a disputed island chain, but Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also called for calm and a diplomatic solution to the feud.
Tension between the North Asian countries flared this month after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak became the first South Korean leader to set foot on the islands claimed by both countries that are known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.
Lee’s visit and his call for Japanese Emperor Akihito to go beyond expressing “deepest regrets” for Japan’s 1910 to 1945 colonial rule triggered a diplomatic tit-for-tat feud.
The dispute between Japan and South Korea has coincided with a standoff between Japan, China and Taiwan over another island chain, the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as Senkaku in Japan.
Noda, accused by the Japanese opposition of being too soft on territorial disputes, walked a fine line, fending off criticism while trying to keep the disputes from spinning out of control.
“In order to protect our national interests, I will say what we must say and do what should be done,” Noda told a news conference. “On the other hand, it would do no good to any country if we uselessly fan hardline opinions at home and escalate the situation.”
However, Noda also sharpened his rhetoric and referred to South Korea’s control of the islands as “illegal occupation,” echoing the language of lawmakers who earlier passed a resolution condemning Lee’s visit to the islands and demanding their return to Japan.
That spurred a swift rebuke from South Korea.
“We strongly protest the prime minister’s unjust territorial claim to Dokdo which is historically, geographically and by international law our [South Korea’s] sovereign land ... and urge he immediately withdraw it,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said in a statement.
Noda said he had no specific economic steps in mind to take in the dispute with South Korea, but Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi earlier suggested that Tokyo might not extend a currency swap arrangement with South Korea after it expires in October.
The Japanese Yomiuri newspaper reported that Japan was leaning toward aborting its plan to buy South Korean government bonds, saying the government believed it would not be understood by the public.
Bitter memories of Japanese militarism run deep in China and South Korea. The territorial disputes show how the region has failed to resolve differences nearly seven decades after the end of World War II.
Narushige Michishita, a security expert from Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, said the intensity of the flare-ups reflected domestic political pressures, but also changing dynamics in the region.
“With a rising China and a more self-confident South Korea, the region is entering an era of turbulence,” he said.
Both Japan and South Korea face elections and China is preparing for a leadership change later this year. The last thing politicians want is to appear weak in dealing with neighbors over territory.
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,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘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