Taiwanese have had misgivings about the safety of Japanese food since the nuclear disaster that followed the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and Japan should have more patience in dealing with the issue, Association of East Asian Relations chairman Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) said.
Lee said Taiwan is Japan’s third-largest export market for its agricultural products. For example, 90 percent of Aomori Prefecture’s apple exports go to Taiwan, he said.
Lee said it was only natural for people to be concerned about food safety, and if doubts exist about Japanese food, Japan should go out of its way to put Taiwanese at ease.
“The matter has nothing to do with politics,” Lee said.
Japan has expressed its displeasure with a move by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to tighten regulations on Japanese food imports after products from five nuclear-affected prefectures — Gunma, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Chiba — were found on the Taiwanese market last month with faked labels.
The new measures, requested by the legislature, are to require Japanese food products to show their specific places of origin rather than just the country of origin, and some products would also require a radiation inspection certificate.
Lee was responding to remarks by a member of the Japanese Diet from Gunma Prefecture, who said in a meeting on Friday that Taiwan’s tougher stance on food imports was a political move.
“The patience of Gunma has its limits, and it will soon explode,” Hiroyoshi Sasakawa said, while another Japanese lawmaker said that “it is time for the Japanese government to take the case to the WTO.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration said it attaches great importance to the issue and plans to send a delegation headed by his special adviser to Taipei on Thursday.
One Liberal Democratic Party official said that the visit had been previously scheduled, but the issue of Taiwan tightening regulations on imported Japanese food was added to the agenda after the dispute emerged.
Members of the Japanese Diet are all best friends of Taiwan, and “everything can be discussed between good friends,” the party official said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh