The Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association (JTEA) is prioritizing helping Taiwan gain entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Japanese Representative to Taiwan Hiroyasu Izumi said yesterday.
Joining the trade agreement would be important to “maintaining the status quo [in the Taiwan Strait] and ensuring Taiwan’s survival,” association head Izumi said at a forum organized by the Lee Teng-hui Foundation in Taipei to discuss Taiwan-Japan relations.
Izumi cited a discussion that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had with Japanese author Ryotaro Shiba, in which Lee told the writer that Taiwanese have a sadness that could only be resolved through developing a national consciousness that sees Taiwan and Taiwanese as separate from China, Izumi said.
Photo: CNA
“Young Taiwanese are now thinking about what to do for the future of Taiwan, and whenever I see young people return to their hometowns to vote on election day, I think about former president Lee,” Izumi said.
“I believe that Taiwanese today have a strong sense of their identity as Taiwanese, and that will be important to protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty,” he added.
Echoing late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s words that “an emergency for Taiwan is an emergency for Japan,” Izumi said Taiwan is strategically important to Japan and the US, and this was demonstrated in Japan’s continuous commitment to safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and security.
Japan and Taiwan can cooperate economically in many areas, such as in green energy, semiconductors and biotechnology, he added.
Citing an example, Izumi said that Japan’s strengths in the development of chemicals could benefit Taiwan’s semiconductor sector, creating a more robust supply chain.
“There are still myriad ways that Japan and Taiwan can cooperate. I feel that my most important task in coming to Taiwan has been to promote Taiwan’s entry into the CPTPP,” he said.
Taiwan has made strides in promoting trade with Southeast Asian countries through the New Southbound Policy, but it should also be given membership in international organizations such as the CPTPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, he said.
“Taiwan ranks among the CPTPP member states in terms of population, economic scale and technological strength, represented by its semiconductor sector,” he said.
“The inclusion of Taiwan as an economy in the CPTPP is absolutely essential to Taiwan’s future,” he said.
The Lee Teng-hui Foundation had invited Abe to give the keynote address, but Izumi was asked to speak in his place, after the former prime minister was assassinated on July 8 at a campaign event in Nara, Japan.
At the start of the forum, a moment of silence was observed for Abe, who died at the age of 67, less than two years after he resigned as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) also spoke at the forum, emphasizing cooperation with Japan and laying out three goals for her administration: to strengthen substantive economic and trade exchanges, continue to deepen educational and cultural exchanges, and engage in normalized regional security cooperation.
Citing Lee, Tsai said that Japan and Taiwan should cooperate not only because of geographic proximity and cultural similarities, but also because of shared values such as respect for peace, democracy and human rights.
Tsai also said that Taiwan has made all the necessary preparations to meet the high standards of the CPTPP, with the hope of gaining entry as soon as possible.
Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are the CPTPP’s 11 signatories.
Taiwan applied to join on Sept. 22 last year, less than a week after China submitted its application.
Additional reporting by CNA
ELIGIBLE FOR JANUARY: All presidential candidates and their running mates meet the requirements to run for office, and none hold dual citizenship, the CEC said Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator and vice presidential candidate Cynthia Wu (吳欣盈) is working with the Central Election Commission (CEC) to resolve issues with her financial disclosure statement, a spokesman for the candidate said yesterday, after the commission published the statements of all three presidential candidates and their running mates, while confirming their eligibility to run in the Jan. 13 election. Wu’s office spokesman, Chen Yu-cheng (陳宥丞), said the candidate encountered unforeseen difficulties disclosing her husband’s finances due to being suddenly thrust into the campaign. She is also the first vice presidential nominee to have a foreign spouse, complicating the reporting of
GOOD NEWS: Although open civic spaces are shrinking in Asia-Pacific countries and territories, Taiwan’s openness is a positive sign, an expert said Taiwan remains the only country in Asia with an “open” civic space for the fifth consecutive year, the Civicus Monitor said in a report released yesterday. The People Power Under Attack 2023 report named Taiwan as one of only 37 open countries or territories out of 198 globally, and the only one in Asia. Compiled by Civicus — a global alliance of civil society organizations dedicated to bolstering civil action — the ranking compiled annually since 2017 measures the state of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression around the world. Researchers assign each country or territory one of five rankings describing the
NOT JUST CHIPS: Although semiconductor processes are on the list, it also includes military technology and post-quantum cryptography to combat emerging cyberthreats The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released a list of 22 technologies it considers crucial to the nation’s security and competitiveness, including the 14-nanometer semiconductor process and advanced chip packaging. For the first time, the council made a list of core technologies with an aim of preventing secret information about those technologies being leaked to foreign countries, which could put the nation’s security and the competitiveness of local industries at risk. For years, local semiconductor companies have faced challenges from talent poaching and theft of corporate secrets by Chinese competitors, who are seeking to rapidly advance their technology capabilities through
Japanese are more likely to view China as a major threat than Taiwanese, although both sides agree that Beijing’s power and influence are the most concerning geopolitical hazard, a Pew Research Center poll showed on Tuesday. From June 2 to Sept. 17, Pew researchers polled respondents in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong on perceived threats posed by China, the US, Russia and North Korea. China’s power and influence was considered the greatest threat above North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, or US or Russian influence, the report said. Japanese respondents showed the most concern over China, with 76 percent calling it a
RSS