Taiwan, Japan and the US must jointly build up capabilities in all domains, from undersea to space, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday.
Abe made the remarks in a prerecorded speech for the Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei.
He opened his speech by remembering former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) contributions to democracy in Taiwan, while citing US President Joe Biden as saying that democracy should be continually strengthened and renewed.
Taiwan, the US and Japan have one common important agenda: Never lose faith in freedoms, human rights, the rule of law and democracy, Abe said in English.
“When there is a threat over Taiwan and its democracy, it is a dire challenge to all of us, especially to Japan,” he said. “The United States military and Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been close, all the time. Now, the relationship is even closer.”
“The three of us must stop no effort in building our capabilities in all domains, from the undersea, sea surface, air space to the cyber and outer space,” he said, calling for new ways of sharing knowledge and technologies more effectively.
“An adventure in military affairs, if pursued by such a huge economy like China’s, could be suicidal, to say the least,” he added.
Abe said Japan and Australia had jointly put together the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the predecessor to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
It is a group of economies that hold the rules-based order dear, he said.
“That is why the UK does qualify as a member, and so does Taiwan, without doubt,” he said.
Following Abe’s speech, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement thanking him for his support.
Abe is a political leader with global acclaim and has repeatedly spoken up for Taiwan on international occasions, the ministry said, pledging to continue working with Japan, the US and other like-minded nations to defend democracy.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS