Japan is engaging with Taiwan’s allies to prevent them from leaning toward China, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi visited Paraguay, Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in South America, on Saturday and met with Paraguayan president-elect Santiago Pena, it reported.
Hayashi and Pena pledged to maintain and bolster the “free and open international order based on the rule of law,” it said.
Photo: Reuters
Paraguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs Julio Cesar Arriola also voiced support for Japan’s policy of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” it said.
Since Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took office in October 2021, his foreign ministers and state ministers have had discussions with counterparts from nine of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, the report quoted data from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as showing.
Japanese State Minister of Foreign Affairs Shunsuke Takei visited Tuvalu during the “Golden Week” holiday last week, and Hayashi visited Palau during the same period last year, it said.
China offers tempting opportunities for investments and export destinations for developing countries, it said, adding that China is attempting to isolate Taiwan through diplomatic means.
Japan is fostering solidarity with Taiwan’s allies in the face of Chinese expansionism, which demonstrates its effort to prevent Taiwan from being isolated from the international community, it said.
The engagements might be motivated by concern over a possible Taiwan emergency, in which Japan expects Taiwan-friendly countries to enlist international cooperation to support the nation, it said.
As a host country for the G7 summit this year, Japan opposes any unilateral change to the cross-strait “status quo,” and calls for peaceful solutions, it said.
In other news, a survey conducted by Kyodo News showed that nearly 90 percent of Japanese are concerned about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they were “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about the possibility of a Taiwan emergency caused by China’s military action, it reported on Saturday.
Asked about Kishida’s plan to raise taxes to fund a proposed increase in military spending, 19 percent of respondents said they supported it, while 80 percent said they did not, it reported.
The Japanese government allocated a defense budget of about ￥43 trillion (US$318.9 billion) for the five-year period starting this year, more than 1.5 times the previous budget, it said.
More than half of respondents , or 58 percent, consider the budget “inappropriate,” it said.
Given the severe security environment, Japanese consider strengthening defense capabilities to a certain extent unavoidable, but are not in favor of a large increase in defense spending or tax hikes, the report said.
The response “People cannot bear the additional tax burden” was cited by 48 percent of respondents as why they opposed tax increases, it said.
Nearly three-quarters of them — 73 percent — opposed diverting funds allocated for reconstruction projects following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami to defense spending, it said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
RSS