Japanese government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said a decision not to invite Taiwan’s representative to present flowers at a ceremony on Sunday marking the first anniversary of last year’s massive earthquake and tsunami was made by the Japanese Cabinet and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to a Japanese media report yesterday.
The remarks, coming one day after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he was sorry that Taiwan’s representative was not called to present flowers at the ceremony, was “tantamount to recanting the prime minister’s apology to Taiwan,” the Sankei Shimbun reported.
Deputy Representative Lo Koon-tsan (羅坤燦) was seated on the second floor, with representatives of Japanese enterprises and nongovernmental organizations.
Noda, in response to questions by opposition lawmaker Hiroshige Seko at a Budget Committee meeting of the Diet on Monday, said Taiwan warmly extended assistance in the wake of the calamity and if Japan had hurt Taiwan, he felt truly sorry and promised to reflect on his actions.
Seko said he felt ill at ease over two things at Sunday’s ceremony, one being that representatives of other countries and sectors did not rise to greet the emperor and empress when they entered the venue, and the other being that a Taiwanese representative was not invited to present flowers.
Seko said Taiwan was one of the first countries to extend a helping hand and donated the most to the country, adding that the Japanese government had been impolite toward Taiwan. He said he understood that there could be diplomatic difficulties, but it was important to overcome such difficulties to reciprocate Taiwan’s friendship.
He said he felt sorry about Japan’s handling of the ceremony, and he hoped that Noda would apologize to Taiwan as the representative of the nation.
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS