The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rejected allegations that a representative office in Osaka refused to provide government officials with translators during a recent official visit to Japan.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) said on Tuesday that a delegation led by Chiayi County Commissioner Helen Chang (張花冠) was forced to use Chinese translators after the office denied repeated requests for assistance.
Chang, a DPP member, led a group of mostly local officials to the Setouchi International Arts Festival in southern Japan late last month.
KEY MEETING
According to Chang and Chen’s accounts, the group requested that the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Osaka provide them with an official translator before meeting Kagawa Prefecture Governor Keizo Hamada.
Claiming that it was already busy, the representative office rejected the request, Chen said, forcing the group to use a Chinese foreign ministry official that the governor’s office found as their translator.
“It was a dereliction of duty by these officials to refuse to provide us with aid,” Chen said. “This was an official meeting between local Taiwanese government leaders, legislators and the Japanese government.”
Using the Chinese translator could have led to all sorts of complicated problems, for both the Japanese and the delegation, Chen said. If the two sides had talked about any sensitive national issues, he said, it would have been clearly understood by the Chinese official.
SENSITIVE MATTERS
“If any words or phrases were distorted during the meeting, it would have been detrimental to both Taiwan and Japan,” he said.
The ministry dismissed the accusation, saying Chang had never asked the representative office for translation help.
It said the Osaka office only had Taiwanese, including Taiwanese students studying in Japan, help with translation duties and never let anyone from China or anywhere else do the job.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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