The government has no plans to demand that Tokyo recall Interchange Association Representative Masaki Saito and the Japanese government has said that Saito’s recent comments on Taiwan’s status do not reflect the country’s official stance, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) told a group of lawmakers yesterday.
Another deputy minister of foreign affairs, Andrew Hsia (夏立言), on Friday summoned Saito, the representative of the Japanese de facto embassy, to lodge a protest against comments he made at an academic forum in Chiayi County on Friday when he said Taiwan’s status remains “unresolved.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ press release said that during the meeting, Saito apologized for his remarks and said his comments were his own opinion and did not represent the view of his government.
REFRAIN
The ministry also said Saito had promised to refrain from making similar comments in the future.
Reporters were not allowed to attend the meeting between Hsia and Saito.
When asked by the Taipei Times for a transcript of the meeting, ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said there was none and that the public “needs to trust the government.”
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and independence supporters, however, said Saito had nothing to apologize for because he had merely told the truth.
SUPPORT
DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) visited the ministry with seven colleagues yesterday to show their support for Saito.
Chai challenged Lin to an open debate on the issue, as Lin has said it was an indisputable fact that the territory of the Republic of China includes Taiwan, and Interchange Association President Atsushi Hatakenaka has suggested to Taiwan’s representative to Japan that Saito’s comments did not represent that of the Japanese government.
The spokesman said the incident had not affected Taiwan-Japan relations.
This is the second time Taiwan-Japan ties have been tested since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) returned to power in May last year.
In June last year, Japan apologized to Taiwan after a coast guard patrol vessel sank a Taiwanese fishing boat around the disputed waters off the Diaoyuatai.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS