Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) plans to visit Japan next month to deliver lectures, the group that invited him said yesterday.
The Japanese-educated Lee has visited Japan three times since he stepped down as president eight years ago, each trip triggering protests from Beijing.
Lee is unpopular in China because of his efforts to promote Taiwanese identity.
Lee, 85, plans to visit the southern island chain of Okinawa for four days from Sept. 22, said Baku Nagai, a professor at Ryukyu University, who is part of a local academic group that invited him.
“We don’t believe there will be any problem as it is only a private visit,” Nagai said by telephone when asked about Beijing’s possible reaction.
Lee plans to deliver a speech on Japanese culture to a general audience in Okinawa’s Ginowan, which is geographically closer to Taiwan than to Japan’s main island.
He will also visit historical places in Okinawa, the venue of the bloodiest Pacific battle of World War II. Nagai said Lee had no plans to visit Tokyo.
When Lee last visited Japan last year, Tokyo said he was on a private visit. Taiwanese do not require visas to enter Japan.
During that visit Lee mourned his late brother at Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni shrine, ignoring protests by China, which had demanded Japan curb his activities.
The Yasukuni shrine venerates those who died fighting for Japan in war, including war criminals from World War II.
Lee’s elder brother is enshrined at Yasukuni because he died serving in the Japanese navy in the Philippines in February 1945 when Taiwan was a Japanese colony.
Lee, echoing views of many Japanese conservatives, criticized China for making the shrine a political issue.
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