Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said yesterday the government was closely monitoring China’s ramped-up buying of Japanese government debt and would check with Beijing on its motives.
“We are paying close attention” to recent increases in Chinese purchases of Japanese government bonds [JGBs], Noda said during a session of the upper house financial affairs committee, Dow Jones Newswires reported. “I don’t know the true intention” of China regarding its growing appetite for JGBs.
PHOTO: REUTERS
CLOSE COOPERATION
However, Tokyo plans to “closely cooperate [with Beijing] and examine its intention,” he said.
China bought ¥583.1 billion (US$6.9 billion) of Japanese bonds in July, Japan’s finance ministry said on Wednesday, as the Asian giant continued to ramp up purchases of Japanese debt.
The figure was higher than the ¥456.7 billion worth of securities purchased in June.
The news came after the yen hit a fresh 15-year high against the US dollar on Wednesday. Currency traders say China’s buying of yen-denominated assets, while too small on its own to sharply push up the yen, could be bolstering the currency indirectly.
BUYING UP DEBT
For the first half of the year, China bought ¥1.73 trillion of debt, nearly seven times the full-year record of ¥253.8 billion set in 2005.
In May alone, Chinese investors bought a net ¥735.2 billion in Japanese government bonds.
China has sought to diversify its vast investments away from the US dollar and Europe since the onset of the financial crisis. Most of the bonds bought by China are thought to be used by the government to manage its foreign reserves, which surged to a record US$2.454 trillion at the end of June.
The reserves, already the world’s largest, grew 15.1 percent from a year ago, the People’s Bank of China said on its Web site.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)