Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday said he would carry out President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) directive of deepening ties with Japan, as he left for Tokyo to report for his new post as the nation’s representative to Tokyo.
Hsieh arrived at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) yesterday morning in the company of dozens of friends and colleagues, including Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), as well as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) and Pasuya Yao (姚文智), who were there to see him off.
Asked what Tsai’s expectations of him are, Hsieh said the president instructed him to take good care of the relationship between Taiwan and Japan, as the two nations have enjoyed historically close ties.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“Due to disaster relief and rescue missions in the past few years, [our bilateral ties] have seen a benign cycle, where we rush to the rescue of Japanese when there is a disaster in their country and vice versa,” Hsieh said.
Taipei and Tokyo have created an excellent mutual-assistance model that ought to be spread to the entire world, Hsieh said, adding that Tsai wants him to further deepen and strengthen the two nations’ bilateral ties based on an already solid foundation.
Hsieh, who served as premier under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration from 2005 to 2006, is the first former premier to serve as the nation’s representative to Japan.
Hsieh has a bachelor’s degree in law from National Taiwan University and a master’s degree in legal philosophy from Kyoto University in Japan. He went on to pursue a doctoral degree in the same field at Kyoto University, but only managed to finish all the course work when he decided to return to Taiwan after his father was diagnosed with liver cancer.
Hsieh also served as DPP chairman and Kaohsiung mayor for two terms.
Taipei-Tokyo ties have been strained after the Japan Coast Guard’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing boat, the Tung Sheng Chi No. 16, on April 25 while operating in waters about 150 nautical miles (228km) from the Okinotori atoll, which Tokyo regards as an island, claiming a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone around it.
Hsieh said that after handing in his credentials to Tokyo, he is due to fly to Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture today to meet with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德).
Chen and Lai are to leave for Kumamoto today to donate money they have raised for relief efforts in the prefecture, which was struck by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in April, and to reactivate exchanges between the two sides that have been put on hold due to the temblor.
‘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
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
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the