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Japanese official quits over Taiwan

Displaying the samurai spirit and great daring rarely seen in Japanese politics nowadays, Kenichi Mizuno (水野賢一), parliamentary secretary in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has refused go against his principles.

Mizuno formally tendered his resignation on Sunday to Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi (川口順子), making him the first official to resign since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's (小泉純一郎) Cabinet took shape one-and-a-half years ago.

The cause of the resignation: Kawaguchi's refusal to let Mizuno visit Taiwan.

The 36-year-old from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) met Kawaguchi twice early this month to express his desire to visit Taiwan. The purpose of his trip, he said, was to reassure Taiwan that Japan still attaches great importance to relations relations between the two countries as this year marks the 30th anniversary of Japan's ending of official relations with Taiwan.

No high-level foreign ministry official or even parliamentary secretary has paid an official visit to Taiwan since 1972.

To protest the rejection, Mizuno submitted his resignation in Narita airport Sunday just before Kawaguchi set off for a two-week trip to Africa, during which she will attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa.

A graduate from the school of political science and economics at Waseda University, Mizuno was twice elected to the House of Rep-resentatives and now represents Chiba's 9th District.

His political career really took off after becoming one of the foreign ministry's three parliamentary secretaries in January.

Before taking that job, he was director of the LDP's Youth Division and led young party members on a visit to Taiwan in December last year, meeting with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).

But his zeal to shore up ties with Taiwan has been restricted by the foreign ministry's unwillingness to raise tensions with China.

"Japan should be broad-minded enough to embrace its good neighbor, Taiwan, which upholds freedom and democracy and shares the same values as Japan," Mizuno was quoted as saying in a Chinese-language newspaper.

"Although there are no formal diplomatic ties between the two nations, Taiwan and Japan still maintain a close substantive association," he was quoted as saying.

He added that Taiwan is an important partner of Japan, a reality that cannot be denied.

On Thursday, in a meeting with the LDP's Eto-Kamei faction leader Takami Eto (江藤隆美), Mizuno said it was difficult to understand why Japan-Taiwan relations appear to be a forbidden topic inside the foreign ministry.

"Japan should reinforce ties with democratic Taiwan, promoting free exchanges between their government officials," Mizuno said recently in a CNA interview. "Moreover, Japan should voice its strong opposition to China's refusal to relinquish its attempt at annexing Taiwan with military force."

Eto has informed Chief Secretary to the Japanese Cabinet Yasuo Fukuda (福田康夫) of Mizuno's objection and said that his faction will not appoint another member to fill the vacancy.

Mizuno conceded that Japan's relations with China are important but they cannot be built at Taiwan's expense. Even though Taiwan's population is more than 20 million and its economy much larger than those of the Philippines or Malaysia, Japanese foreign policy has deliberately treated Taiwan as non-existent, which is unacceptable, Mizuno said.
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