Three major political parties in Japan have included Taiwan among issues in their campaign platforms ahead of next month’s upper house elections.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) and the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) are among those vying for 125 seats in the House of Councilors in the July 10 vote.
The upper house of the Japanese Diet has 284 seats, about half of which are up for re-election every three years.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The CDP, the nation’s largest opposition party, has proposed to establish an international institution for security cooperation within the ASEAN Plus Three network to ensure that there is not “a Taiwan emergency,” it said.
ASEAN Plus Three refers to the 10 ASEAN member states plus China, Japan and South Korea.
The CDP also advocates for enhancing the quality of Japan’s national defense abilities.
The JIP proposes in its campaign platform to “establish a Japanese version of the [US’s] Taiwan Relations Act” to boost ties with Taiwan, and would negotiate a free-trade agreement.
The LDP also promises to strengthen Japan’s defenses, saying that many NATO members spend 2 percent of their GDP on national defense, a target also supported by the JIP.
The LDP last year said in its campaign for the House of Representatives — or lower house — that it would bolster cooperation with Taiwan, the US, Australia, India, Europe, ASEAN and Pacific island nations to realize a “free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
The party maintains the same stance in its campaign platforms for the upcoming upper house election.
As this is the first national election since Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida assumed office last year, political observers have said that the results of the upper house elections would be viewed as an assessment of his administration.
The LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, hold 138 seats in the upper house, 69 of which are not up for election this year.
Kishida’s LDP is trying to maintain a majority of the upper house seats, which would require winning 56 seats, with Komeito contributing to the total.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS