The People First Party (PFP) caucus yesterday dismissed media reports linking a possible meeting between PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at next weekend’s APEC leaders’ summit to the government’s reported plan to lift an import ban on food products from five Japanese prefectures, saying it is customary for Taiwan’s APEC envoy to meet with Japan’s prime minister.
The PFP caucus statement dismissed an opinion piece in yesterday’s Chinese-language United Daily News claiming that Japan has required Taiwan to officially announce the lifting of the ban before Sunday, the possible date for a Soong-Abe meeting.
Soong is to represent President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the summit and he is scheduled to leave tomorrow for Lima, Peru, which is hosting the two-day meeting that begins on Saturday.
“It has been customary for Taiwan’s APEC envoy to meet with Japan’s prime minister in private. Besides, given Tokyo’s close ties with Taipei and its standoff with Beijing, there is no need for a quid pro quo deal for an unofficial meeting,” the PFP caucus said.
Expressing regret over what it said were the newspaper’s fabricated claims, the PFP caucus said by the logic of the article, then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin’s (林永樂) admission in August last year that the government was leaning toward lifting the ban indicated the existence of a quid pro quo deal.
The ban was imposed on food imports from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures on March 25, 2011, due to fears of radioactive contamination from the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant 14 days earlier.
As APEC envoy, Soong only has one mission, which is to truthfully present Taiwan’s experiences to a global audience in the hope of expanding the nation’s international space, the caucus said.
“Soong would never intervene in or seek to steer the direction of government policies for the sake of fulfilling his own personal interests,” it added.
The caucus said the PFP’s stance toward food safety issues have remained adamant, which is to subject the foods in question to the most stringent scientific-based assessment and have zero tolerance for quid pro quo deals.
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