Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) yesterday arrived in Tokyo at the head of a 23-member legislative delegation.
It is the largest such delegation to visit Japan, Su said, and he hopes it will help promote friendly relations between the two governments and the two nations.
Asked if he would meet former Japanese defense minister Yuriko Koike, who was elected governor of Tokyo in a landslide victory on Sunday, Su said that such a meeting has not been arranged.
It would be good to meet Koike, but she must be very busy, he said.
Su’s delegation includes Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) and whips of all the caucuses.
It is the first time Su has led a delegation to Japan since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was sworn in.
After the delegation arrived it went to Yokohama to watch a performance by the Hong Puppet Theater, and was to later attend a dinner hosted by Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), a former premier.
The head of Japan’s Interchange Association, Mitsuo Obahi, is to host a luncheon in the delegation’s honor today, where the delegation is expected to donate relief funds for victims of the series of earthquakes that rocked Kumamoto Prefecture in April.
It is also to call on Liberal Democratic Party Acting Secretary-General Hiroyuki Hosoda and Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Yukio Edano and visit the Tokyo National Museum.
Su and the delegation are to meet tomorrow to meet with Japanese lawmaker Nobuo Kishi, a younger brother of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and head of a Japanese young parliamentarians group dedicated to the promotion of Japan-Taiwan economic and cultural exchanges.
The delegation is to attend a dinner given by the Japan-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group that night and return to Taipei on Thursday.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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