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
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
The New Taipei Metro's Sanyin Line and the eastern extension of the Taipei Metro's Tamsui-Xinyi Line (Red Line) are scheduled to begin operations in June, the National Development Council said today. The Red Line, which terminates at Xiangshan Station, would be connected by the 1.4km extension to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, while the Sanyin Line would link New Taipei City's Tucheng and Yingge stations via Sanxia District (三峽). The council gave the updates at a council meeting reviewing progress on public construction projects for this year. Taiwan's annual public infrastructure budget would remain at NT$800 billion (US$25.08 billion), with NT$97.3
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
RSS