A former Japanese foreign ministry official who quit last month after his government prevented him from visiting Taiwan said yesterday his country should establish official ties with Taiwan.
"Judging from the close cultural, economic and trade interactions between these two nations, it is unnatural and unreasonable for Japan's foreign policy to neglect Taiwan's existence," Kenichi Mizuno (水野賢一), a member of the Japanese Diet, said at a seminar on Taiwan-Japan relations.
The seminar was hosted by Taiwan's Taiwan-Japan Forum in the 21st Century (21
Mizuno, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that while formal China-Japan relations were important to Japan, such relations should not be built at Taiwan's expense.
"I personally think that Japan should seriously consider establishing formal ties with Taiwan, for both countries shares common values in democracy and freedom, values that China lacks," he said.
Conceding that such a proposition would be strongly opposed by China, Mizuno said that Japan should stand firm and not yield to pressure from Beijing.
"Japan should not fear raising tensions between Japan and China and curtail its decisions based on presumptions about China's reaction," he said.
Mizuno recently stirred an uproar in Japan when he resigned late last month as parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he had held since January, to protest Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi's rejection of his request to pay an official visit to Taiwan.
No high-level foreign ministry official or even parliamentary secretary has paid an official visit to Taiwan since 1972, when Japan and Taiwan ended official diplomatic ties.
Other than cultural and trade exchanges, frequent interaction should also be promoted between Japanese and Taiwanese government officials, for Taiwan is an important partner of Japan, a reality that cannot be denied, Mizuno said.
DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (
The possibility of Taiwan signing a free-trade agreement with Japan was also discussed at the seminar yesterday.
While the DPP late last month vowed to push for such an agreement within two years, Japanese Diet member Isao Matsumiya, however, said that it would be difficult to stick to the timetable as a consensus had not been reached between the two countries.
Matsumiya also said Japan was waiting to see how China's overtures to ASEAN developed before exploring a free-trade deal with Taiwan.
Aside from Mizuno and Matsumiya, Diet member Shoichi Nakagawa also took part in the seminar as well as several Taiwanese legislators, including Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) of the DPP, Chen Horng-chi (陳鴻基) and Shyu Jong-shyong (徐中雄) of the KMT and Wu Tung-sheng (吳東昇) of the TSU.
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights