Government efforts to smooth over Taiwan-Japan relations in private have begun in earnest in the hopes of persuading Japan to support Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), despite Taiwan’s ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures.
In a referendum held alongside the Nov. 24 local elections, 78 percent of nearly 10 million voters cast ballots in favor of referendum No. 9, which asked: “Do you agree that the government should, in connection to the March 11 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster, continue to enforce the food imports ban on 31 regions in Japan, including agricultural and food products from Fukushima and the surrounding four prefectures and municipalities (Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba)?”
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono on Friday last week said that the vote makes it unlikely that Taiwan’s CPTPP bid would succeed and Tokyo did not rule out taking the issue to the WTO.
Photo: CNA
Efforts to improve relations include President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) conveying her well-wishes to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association for Japanese Emperor Akihito’s birthday on Dec. 23, when the association hosted an early celebration, while Premier William Lai (賴清德) is to attend the event, the source said.
In a meeting with Japanese friends, Tsai also reiterated Taiwan’s wish to join the treaty, the source said, adding that the government has sought to reassure Japan that nothing would affect Taiwan-Japan relations.
Taiwan has also contacted other CPTPP signatories, such as Australia, Canada and Singapore, in the hopes of securing their sponsorship to join the pact.
Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) said that the government is still talking to Japan to obtain its support for Taiwan joining the free-trade pact.
With the treaty to go into effect at the end of the month, the signatories are expected to hold a ministerial-level meeting next month, during which the body might debate procedures and regulations regarding accession of new members, Deng said.
Despite facing significant challenges, the government is preparing for a possible second round of negotiations to join the treaty, a government official said.
Despite Japan’s stance, Taiwan still has a chance of being admitted as a member, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS