Tokyo could have reservations about allowing president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to visit Japan prior to his inauguration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that Taiwan-Japan ties were likely to reach a new high under Ma.
Deputy-general of the ministry's Committee on Japanese Affairs Peter Tsai (
Tsai said his committee would do everything it could to make Ma's Japan visit happen.
Ma, who won a landslide victory on Saturday, expressed his wish to visit Japan before May 20 during an interview with two Japanese reporters on Monday.
Tsai said Tokyo would need some time to mull over the possibility of a Ma visit, especially since Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is scheduled to visit Japan in the near future.
Japan would have to seriously consider Ma's status as Taiwanese president-elect, he said.
High-ranking Taiwanese leaders are not welcome in many countries as a result of pressure from China.
Academics in Japan have said Hu was likely to ask Tokyo to publicly reaffirm its commitment to the "one China" principle as a means to preempt any wavering on Japan's part.
Others, including members of the Japanese government, have voiced concerns over the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) pro-unification stance, which they fear could result in an increase in anti-Japanese sentiment in Taiwan.
"In my many years of experience working on Taiwan-Japan relations, I doubt such a thing would happen. In fact, Ma's visits to Japan in 2006 and last year have demonstrated his friendliness toward Japan," one of them said.
Ma will therefore take Taiwan-Japan relations very seriously and will do everything he can to improve bilateral ties, he said.
Stronger Taiwan-Japan ties are in Japan's national interest because it would increase stability and security in the region, he said.
Phil Deans, a professor at Temple University in the US who specializes on Japan, agreed that Ma's win would not damage ties between the two countries, adding that any speculation about an anti-Japanese Ma administration was "misguided."
During Ma's last visit to Japan, he demonstrated that he was not part of the "old KMT school," which was markedly anti-Japanese because of Japanese atrocities in China during World War II, Deans said.
Taiwanese, he said at a post-election roundtable on Sunday, are by far the friendliest people to the Japanese in Asia.
Japan, however, is experiencing its own intra-party rows and factions within the Diet have different views on the Ma victory, he said.
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