Japan should consider drafting its own version of the US’ Taiwan Relations Act to further boost bilateral relations, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said at a meeting with Japanese politicians on Tuesday.
Chao urged Japanese lawmakers to follow the example of the US, which passed the Taiwan Relations Act after severing diplomatic relations with the Republic of China in 1979.
Such a move would be an “important step” in further promoting Taiwan-Japan relations, he said.
Photo: CNA
Promulgated in 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act has served as the foundation for US policy toward Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic ties. It outlines Washington’s commitment to help Taiwan maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.
A Japanese version of the Taiwan Relations Act could include provisions to strengthen bilateral collaboration, push official contacts to a higher level and elevate the treatment of diplomats from both countries, Chao said.
Japan should consider such legislation at a time when there are more Taiwan-friendly lawmakers than ever before in the Japanese Diet, he added
Taiwan should also come up with corresponding legislation, the Japan Relations Act, to normalize exchanges between the two countries and allow ties to develop in a more equal and reciprocal way, Chao said at the first-ever Security Partnerships meeting between Taiwan and Japan.
The virtual meeting was held for the first time in what DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) described as a new chapter for parliamentary exchanges between Taiwan and Japan on security issues.
However, no Taiwanese opposition figures attended the Tuesday meeting, and only one of the two Japanese politicians who took part in the talks is an incumbent lawmaker.
Former Japanese state minister of defense Yasuhide Nakayama said that the Liberal Democratic Party had been discussing the issue internally for some time.
Nakayama said the time was ripe for Japan to consider introducing a Taiwan Relations Act, without asserting whether his party would support such legislation.
China has exerted military and economic pressure on many countries while attempting to change the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait, Nakayama said, adding that Japan should not sit idly by under such circumstances.
DPP Legislator Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) said Taiwan and Japan could collaborate on security issues and work together to combat overseas disinformation.
Nakayama said it would be difficult for Japanese authorities to collaborate on security issues, such as holding joint exercises, with Taiwan because Tokyo is bound by its agreement with Beijing, which stipulates that Japan and Taiwan should maintain unofficial relations, and engage only in economic and cultural fields.
He was referring to the Treaty of Peace and Friendship that Japan and China inked in 1978.
Nakayama nonetheless agreed that the two sides could work on tackling disinformation through information sharing and other means.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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