Japanese Councilor Hei Seki (石平) on Wednesday said that he plans to visit Taiwan, saying that would “prove that Taiwan is an independent country and does not belong to China.”
Seki, a member of the Japan Innovation Party, was born in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province and became a naturalized Japanese in 2007. He was elected to the House of Concilors last year. His views on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — espoused in a series of books on politics and history — prompted Beijing to sanction him, including barring Seki from traveling to China.
Seki wrote on X that he intends to visit Taiwan early this year.
Photo: Bloomberg
The visit would have two purposes, he said.
The first is to meet with government officials to exchange views on the situation in the Taiwan Strait, and to discuss possible defense cooperation between Taiwan and Japan, he wrote.
“The second is to show that Taiwan is an independent country,” he wrote. “The Chinese government has banned me from entering China, but if I make the visit, it would prove that Taiwan is not part of China.”
Seki studied philosophy at Peking University before moving to Japan in 1988, where he attended graduate school at Kobe University, earning a doctorate in cultural studies. Later, he was a university lecturer, political commentator and author of Japanese-language books, including one on “why I abandoned China.”
While he was studying in Japan, the student democracy movement rose in China, leading to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
Other books that Seki wrote focused on the history of massacres in China and his reasons for denouncing the CCP.
Seki’s campaign platform leading up to the elections in July focused on “protecting Japan from China’s military threat.”
“The Senkaku Islands [which Taiwan also claims and calls the Diaoyutais, 釣魚台列嶼] and political issues over Taiwan are fundamental to safeguard Japan’s national security,” he said at the time. “If Taiwan faces a contingency situation, Japan’s lifelines on the sea would be cut, and Okinawa would become the front line of a military conflict.”
“The Japanese government has a political responsibility to prepare for such a contingency,” he added.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September announced sanctions targeting Seki, banning him from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macau. It also froze his assets in China.
Beijing accused him of spreading fallacies regarding Taiwan, the Diaoyutais — which China also claims — and other issues.
It also criticized him for advocating that Japanese worship at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which is dedicated to people who died fighting on behalf of the Japanese emperor, including 30,304 Taiwanese soldiers killed in World War II.
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