First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) may visit Fukushima during a trip to Japan next month to preside over the opening of the Tokyo exhibition of National Palace Museum artifacts, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs source said yesterday.
A ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Storm Media Group report that the trip to Fukushima is still being arranged and not yet finalized.
Under a cultural exchange program signed between Taiwan and Japan last year, the National Palace Museum is putting 231 pieces on display at an exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum, followed by a similar exhibition at the Kyushu National Museum.
The two Japanese museums are to loan 150 artworks to the Taipei-based museum for an exhibition in October 2016.
Chow’s trip to Japan to inaugurate the exhibition will be in the same vein as the visit to Germany by former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) when the museum loaned its treasures for an exhibition in Berlin in 2003, the official said.
When Chow is in Japan, she might visit Fukushima — where hundreds of thousands of people continue to be affected by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the region in March 2011 — to express her support for its recovery, the official said.
The reason the Presidential Office is planning the visit by Chow to Fukushima is to highlight the government’s commitment to ensuring the safety of the nation’s nuclear power plants at a time when the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) has been plagued by widespread doubts over its safety, in addition to getting an understanding of how Taiwanese have assisted with the post-disaster recovery in Fukushima, Storm Media Group reported, without naming a source.
However, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) denied that, saying the trip to Japan would not have anything to do with the nuclear safety issue.
The Presidential Office had not commented on the report as of press time.
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