Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has appointed as defense minister a politician who has worked to build ties with Taiwan, yesterday’s new Cabinet lineup showed.
The choice spotlights a stronger line on defense as Kishida battles sagging ratings with his term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) set to end next year.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the role of minister of defense went to Minoru Kihara, a pro-Taiwan politician who has visited the nation and belongs to a Japan-Taiwan inter-parliamentary group.
Photo: Reuters
Kihara would oversee the bolstering of Japan’s military as part of a plan to double defense spending by 2027. He would have to solve the question of how to fund that buildup amid rising tensions in the region over China’s military expansion and maritime disputes.
Takashi Kawakami, a security expert and professor at Takushoku University in Tokyo, said the choice of Kihara as defense minister “isn’t an anti-China move, but it does indicate a closeness with Taiwan.”
“I do think this sends a message that Japan is seeking stability in Taiwan alongside the United States,” he said.
However, one political commentator said that such ministerial roles had diminished in importance in favor of dialogue with China at the highest levels.
“Around the world, summit diplomacy has become the mainstream,” said Shigenobu Tamura, who previously worked for the LDP. “Even if the foreign and defense minister posts change, there won’t be any change or impact on Japan’s diplomatic policy.”
The Cabinet shuffle comes as Kishida, who assumed office two years ago, has seen his popularity dip in recent months after a string of scandals, including data mishaps linked to government ID cards and the arrest of a vice minister under suspicion of bribery.
In related news, Japan has appointed a serving government official to act as its de facto defense attache in Taiwan, four sources said, elevating security ties in a move likely to anger China.
Japan handles bilateral relations through the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei, which is chiefly staffed by reassigned foreign and trade ministry officials. The defense attache role has until now been held by a retired Japan Self Defense Force officer to avoid antagonizing China.
He has been joined by an official dispatched by the Japanese Ministry of Defense to enhance information gathering and communicate with Taiwan’s military, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
It is also “symbolic” of Japan’s support for Taiwan, said one of the people who know about the appointment. “Taiwan had been asking for an active duty defense official to fill the post.”
Highlighting Tokyo’s nervousness about Beijing’s reaction, the move was halted last year after a Japanese media report about the plan, the sources said.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense said that it would only pursue “non-governmental” ties with Taiwan.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment when asked about the new defense attache, but said it “would continue to deepen cooperation with similar-minded partners such as Japan.”
See Japanese on Page 5
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘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