Over the years, Taiwan-Japan ties have improved significantly, with the two nations having cemented their engagement in a number of areas.
The links between Taiwan and Japan are very old. From 1895 to 1945, Taiwan was under Japanese rule. After giving up its claim to Taiwan in 1952, Japan recognized the Republic of China as a nation instead of China. Even after September 1972, when Japan cut off diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established ties with China, Tokyo continued to strengthen ties with Taipei, with Japan establishing the then-Interchange Association in Taipei and the Association of East Asian Relations in Japan.
While these institutional and other efforts at various levels by both nations continued to transform the ties between the two sides, the coming of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to power further increased the prospect of expansion in bilateral engagement between Taiwan and Japan, given the strong political chemistry that Tsai and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enjoy.
This can be viewed from the fact that Tsai as a presidential candidate had visited Japan’s Cabinet Office in Tokyo. While Abe sent a congratulatory message to Tsai on her election, Tsai also congratulated Abe on his re-election as prime minister last year.
In the same year, while Japan renamed its office in Taipei to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, Taiwan changed its office name in Tokyo to the Taiwan-Japan Relationship Association, reflecting the deepening ties between the two sides.
Furthermore, Abe’s government in March last year sent Japanese Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Jiro Akama to Taiwan to participate in a tourism promotion event.
These political overtures have not been made in a geopolitical vacuum. Taipei and Tokyo have their own and shared interests in promoting their engagement to the next level.
One of common factors that has had profound impact on the relationship between the two nations has been economic, trade and commerce issues. While Japan is Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner, Taiwan is Japan’s fourth-largest trading partner, with the volume of the bilateral trade having reached US$62.7 billion last year.
Japan has a strong presence in Taiwan’s retail trade, construction and real estate, while Taiwanese companies have been cooperating with Japan in the manufacturing of semiconductors, electronics and electrical products.
While the two nations annually hold the Taiwan-Japan Economic and Trade Conference, along with other mechanisms to address difficulties encountered in bilateral trade, the two last month signed five trade agreements to boost bilateral trade relations.
These agreements assumed huge significance for the direction of trade between the two sides, because only five days before in a referendum, Taiwanese had supported an ongoing ban on food product imports from 31 regions in Japan that Taipei imposed after the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster.
At the same time, the move was also aimed at speeding up customs clearance processes for goods traded between the two nations, among other things.
Another important dimension of the sustained engagement between Taiwan and Japan is security cooperation.
At a time when China is aggressively focused on reshaping the balance of power in Asia in its favor, it has become imperative for Taipei and Tokyo to ensure that Beijing does not succeed in its evil endeavor, given the fact that both nations have security threats emanating from China.
More specifically, while Taiwan has an existential threat from China, Japan sees China’s military posturing in the South China Sea as a threat to its economic, energy, security and other interests.
It is precisely in this context that in 2016 Taipei and Tokyo held a maritime cooperation dialogue covering a number of issues, including maritime security and scientific research. In December last year, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime search-and-rescue operations to allow vessels and rescue staff from either side to help in the event of a maritime emergency near Okinotorishima.
The two sides have also focused on enhancing their military plans and charting out a strategy to ensure that the “status quo” is maintained in the Indo-Pacific region.
Thus, while Taiwan has aggressively pursued its policy of getting access to US advanced missile systems and military hardware, Japan in August sent a submarine to the South China Sea for the first time since World War II to participate in military exercises.
The two sides also have a strong bond of people-to-people engagement. This can be gauged from the fact that Taiwanese visitors to Japan reached 4.56 million last year, while tourists from Japan to Taiwan totaled 1.89 million.
Of course, these positive signs do not allow us to overlook the problems that Taiwan and Japan face in their relationship. For instance, both the nations have continued to assert their ownership of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as the Senkakus in Japan — and other issues.
However, the fact remains that Taipei and Tokyo have shown maturity in dealing with these matters in the sense that there is an increasing realization in both nations that any contentious issue must not be allowed to impact their improving ties, especially when China has become so assertive.
At the same time, the economic, trade, commerce, security and other domestic, regional and global issues will play a pivotal role in accelerating the relationship to a new height.
Sumit Kumar is a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs visiting fellow at National Chengchi University in Taipei and a research fellow at the Chennai Centre for China Studies in India.
With escalating US-China competition and mutual distrust, the trend of supply chain “friend shoring” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fragmentation of the world into rival geopolitical blocs, many analysts and policymakers worry the world is retreating into a new cold war — a world of trade bifurcation, protectionism and deglobalization. The world is in a new cold war, said Robin Niblett, former director of the London-based think tank Chatham House. Niblett said he sees the US and China slowly reaching a modus vivendi, but it might take time. The two great powers appear to be “reversing carefully
As China steps up a campaign to diplomatically isolate and squeeze Taiwan, it has become more imperative than ever that Taipei play a greater role internationally with the support of the democratic world. To help safeguard its autonomous status, Taiwan needs to go beyond bolstering its defenses with weapons like anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles. With the help of its international backers, it must also expand its diplomatic footprint globally. But are Taiwan’s foreign friends willing to translate their rhetoric into action by helping Taipei carve out more international space for itself? Beating back China’s effort to turn Taiwan into an international pariah
Typhoon Krathon made landfall in southwestern Taiwan last week, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and flooding, cutting power to more than 170,000 homes and water supply to more than 400,000 homes, and leading to more than 600 injuries and four deaths. Due to the typhoon, schools and offices across the nation were ordered to close for two to four days, stirring up familiar controversies over whether local governments’ decisions to call typhoon days were appropriate. The typhoon’s center made landfall in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang District (小港) at noon on Thursday, but it weakened into a tropical depression early on Friday, and its structure
Taiwan is facing multiple economic challenges due to internal and external pressures. Internal challenges include energy transition, upgrading industries, a declining birthrate and an aging population. External challenges are technology competition between the US and China, international supply chain restructuring and global economic uncertainty. All of these issues complicate Taiwan’s economic situation. Taiwan’s reliance on fossil fuel imports not only threatens the stability of energy supply, but also goes against the global trend of carbon reduction. The government should continue to promote renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, as well as energy storage technology, to diversify energy supply. It
RSS