Japan was likely to grant former president Lee Teng-hui (
Foreign Minister Yohei Kono visited outgoing Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori at Mori's residence yesterday evening. Emerging from his visit, Kono told reporters at around 9:30pm last night that Mori had instructed him to issue a visa to Lee if he complied with three conditions, the report said.
PHOTO: CHANG MAO-SEN, TAIPEI TIMES
The conditions were: The site of Lee's visit would be limited to the specific hospital in Kurashiki City, Japan, where he planned to receive medical treatment; Lee would be granted leave to stay only for the duration of his medical treatment; and finally Lee would be forbidden to make any contact with Japanese political figures during his stay in Japan.
The report said that the foreign ministry was inclined to issue a visa to Lee following Mori's instructions late last night.
Mori's government is likely to make an official announcement on the visa decision this morning, according to a Taiwanese diplomat in Tokyo.
According to NHK's 10pm news broadcast yesterday, Kono said that Japan "needs to confirm whether the visit is only for medical treatment or not" before a visa can be granted. Kono also said the Prime Minister directed the foreign ministry to "immediately consider issuing the visa from a humanitarian standpoint."
Responding to the related reports from Japan, Chiou I-jen (
"If Japan finally makes such a decision [with the three conditions], then that decision is not satisfactory but can be tolerated," Chiou said late yesterday evening.'
Reports in Japan said Mori was eager to settle the matter before leaving office despite opposition from officials such as Kono.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Japan was likely to accept Lee's request to visit Japan for a medical examination, but would ban him from engaging in any political activity in order to minimize the impact on Tokyo-Beijing ties.
Staffers at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan said they remained "optimistic" about Japan's final decision.
"I am 99 percent sure that Lee will be granted a visa," a Taiwanese diplomat at the representative office told the Taipei Times.
Kono told a parliamentary diplomacy and defense committee yesterday that his government had yet to come to a final decision, although "humanitarian concerns" remained a consideration in the government's final decision.
"It is unthinkable to ignore, or not to take into consideration the humanitarian aspect ... We are continuing our discussions from the point of view of our national interests, while considering various aspects, including our relations with China, Taiwan and humanitarian issues," Kono said.
Kono admitted for the first time that Lee's representative had submitted a visa application on April 10 to the head of the Interchange Association in Taipei, Japan's de facto embassy.
"But we did not regard it as a formal application," Kono said.
Dozens of Japanese and Japan-based Taiwanese protested in front of Japan's foreign ministry yesterday to urge the government to grant Lee a visa, said members of staff at Taipei's de facto embassy to Tokyo.
While China continued to pressure Japan not to issue a visa, Taiwan blasted China for its interference with Japan's decision.
Chinese foreign ministry spokes-woman Zhang Qiyue (章啟月) yesterday repeated a demand that Tokyo refuse Lee a visa to avoid damaging ties between Tokyo and Beijing.
"By visiting Japan, Lee is trying to split China and destroy Japan-China relations," Chen Jian (
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS