More than half the population listed Japan as their favorite country, a survey conducted by Japan’s representative office in Taiwan has found.
Japan ranked far ahead of the US and China as the favorite foreign country of Taiwanese, being chosen by 52 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by the Japan Interchange Association’s Taipei office, the country’s de facto embassy in Taiwan.
Only 8 percent of respondents said the US was their favorite country, while 5 percent said China.
“The results show that people in Taiwan and Japan have good feelings about each other in general,” said Chen Tyau-her (陳調和), secretary-general of the East Asian Relations Commission under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In terms of Taiwan-Japan relations, 28 percent described them as “good or very good,” and 63 percent said relations are “neither good nor bad.”
Around 62 percent of respondents described Japan as a “closely-related” country, with 13 percent among them saying that relations between Taiwan and Japan are “very close.” The number was down from last year’s 69 percent.
Japan is still highly popular among Taiwanese tourists, as 90 percent of respondents said it was a charismatic country and 44 percent said Japan was their preferred destination for an overseas trip.
Europe was the second favorite destination at 29 percent.
Economic, trade and industrial exchanges were listed by 20 percent of respondents as the area of greatest expectations for bilateral exchanges in the future.
However, Japan lagged behind China — 31 percent to 33 percent — as the most important country with which Taiwan should try to seek closer relations, the survey found. The US was third.
Among areas of concern in the bilateral relationship, 36 percent of respondents said they were most worried about fishing issues while 30 percent cited anxiety over the impact of the Japan-China relationship on Japan’s ties with Taiwan.
The Interchange Association concluded that while most Taiwanese still view the relationship with Japan as close, the percentage of those listing Japan as their favorite country has dropped from last year, and the appeal of Japanese food was also slightly down.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS