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Academics discuss political significance of Taiwan’s future

An independent Taiwan is in the best interest of Japan’s national security, three Japanese academics said at a forum in Taipei yesterday, calling Taiwan “Japan’s lifeline” because of its geographic importance.

Gomi Mutsuyoshi, a research associate who specializes in navy warfare at the Defense Research Center (DRC) in Japan, told an audience at a forum hosted by the Taiwan National Security Institute that Taiwan’s position in the middle of the Pacific Asian region would be highly coveted by any country that seeks to dominate the area.

“Japan is an oceanic country that relies heavily on the use of sea lanes, especially the East Sea [Sea of Japan], for foreign exported natural resources such as oil. For the Japanese, security on the sea lane is a matter of life and death,” he said.

If China annexed Taiwan, he said, the Chinese would undoubtedly use Taiwan as a navy base to bolster its influence over the region, which would directly threaten Japan’s mobility and national security.

“Taiwan is Japan’s lifeline,” he said. “We as Japanese must be keenly aware of the negative causal effects of being complacent about China’s ambition to take over Taiwan.”

DRC director Ueda Naruhiko said that at the moment Japanese commercial fleets have few problems while traveling in the vicinity of Taiwan, but the situation could take a sharp downward turn if Taiwan unifies with China.

“The Japanese people should view the Taiwan Strait security issue as an issue of their own,” he said. “While it is important to maintain a friendly Japan-China relationship, we also must actively contemplate building positive working relations with Taiwan.”

Sugiyama Katsumi, another DRC research associate and a Meikai University professor, told the forum that Taiwanese, being historically agrarian and nomadic, possess the rare genetic make-up to be aggressive and pacifying at the same time, which makes Taiwanese ideal to help contribute to solving some of the world’s major conflicts.
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