The All Japan Taiwanese Union (AJTU) in a letter yesterday asked Japanese National Diet Library (NDL) director-general Motonobu Yoshinaga to change how Taiwan is addressed on its Web site from “Taiwan, Province of China” to “Taiwan.”
The library is the only national library in Japan that belongs to the National Diet, the Japanese parliament, and all publications in Japan are supposed to submit a copy to it for preservation, while the library also collects and conserves materials and information from abroad.
The NDL not only provides services for members of the parliament, but also for the public, and it has been working on the digitalization of its collections and providing online services over the past few years.
Photo courtesy of All Japan Taiwanese Union
With the process being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the online “NDL Search” service was launched on Jan. 14, but an error was found.
Members of the public must register as a member to use the NDL Search and they are required to select a country of residence. While people can choose “Taiwan” in the Japanese version of the Web site, they can only choose “Taiwan, Province of China” in the English version.
The AJTU, a Taiwanese compatriot organization in Japan, said this is disguised coercion targeting Taiwanese and people living in Taiwan to make them accept that Taiwan is a province of China, which is inconsistent with reality and is a great insult to Taiwanese.
“Taiwan is a sovereign country with its own government, economics and culture, which differs from the communist system,” the union said. “It is a mature democratic country, and definitely not part of China.”
The AJTU said the Japan-China Joint Communique signed in 1972 states the “People’s Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China,” and Japan fully “understands,” but does not accept it.
China falsely claims that Taiwan is part of its territory and publicly announces its intention to annex the nation, the AJTU said, adding that the library’s mistake in its NDL Search caters to China.
The AJTU’s open letter asked the library to immediately correct the mistake on the English version of its Web site.
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