Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said it was thanks to Tokyo's colonization of Taiwan that the country today enjoys such high education standards, a report said yesterday.
Aso said he believed Japan "did a good thing" to Taiwan during its occupation, such as implementing a compulsory education system, the Kyodo News agency said.
"Thanks to the significant improvement in educational standards and literacy [during colonization], Taiwan is now a country with a very high education level and keeps up with the current era," Aso was quoted as saying to an audience in western city of Fukuoka.
"This is something I was told by an important figure in Taiwan and all the elderly people knew about it," Aso said.
"That was a time when I felt that, as expected, our predecessors did a good thing," he said.
Japan colonized Taiwan from 1895 to 1945 after China ceded Taiwan to Japan. During Japan's colonial rule, Taiwanese were forced to study and speak Japanese.
His remarks are likely to stir criticism, and also follow his comments that the Japanese emperor should visit a controversial Tokyo war shrine.
Aso last week said Emperor Akihito should visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including 14 men convicted as war criminals by the Allies after World War II.
Visits to the shrine by top Japanese officials have sparked outrage from China and South Korea, which see the shrine as the symbol of Japan's militarist past.
Japan's diplomatic relations with China have already been at low ebb because of visits to the shrine by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, anti-Japanese riots in China and a host of other issues.
Late wartime emperor Hirohito stopped visiting Yasukuni shrine after it enshrined top war criminals in 1978. Since becoming emperor in 1989, Akihito has refrained from going to the Shinto sanctuary, which has become a thorn in relations with neighboring nations.
Aso had said it would be "best" if the emperor visited the shrine instead of only Koizumi, who has angered China and South Korea with an annual pilgrimage there.
Aso said soldiers had gone to war saying "Long live the emperor" and not hailing the prime minister.
The Japanese government later signalled that Emperor Akihito was unlikely to visit the war shrine.
Foreign ministry officials in Beijing were not available for comment on Aso's latest remarks.
also see story:
Editorial: Trading one nationalism for another
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
RSS