Renaming Japan’s representative office in Taipei as the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association would help lessen misunderstandings and reflect Taiwan’s burgeoning relationship with Japan, association president Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) said yesterday at the official unveiling of the association’s new doorplate in Taipei.
“While people were clear about what we were concerned with when the office was first established, as time has gone by, many no longer have a clue,” Chiou said, recalling how he once received a telephone call asking him to resolve an issue in Hawaii.
“Finally” changing the name of the non-governmental agency, formerly known as the Association of East Asian Relations, Taiwan, after almost 45 years lends clarity to the association’s mission, he said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The association was established in 1972 to handle relations with Japan after diplomatic ties were broken off, with its Tokyo branch — the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan — also serving as Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the nation.
While officially a civic organization under government contract, most employees simultaneously hold positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The name change follows a similar change on the part of its Japanese counterpart earlier this year, which changed its name from Interchange Association, Japan to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association.
“Before we changed our name, a lot of people were not clear about our mission — we even had people calling and asking us about marriage matches,” Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Representative Mikio Numata said, adding that the renaming is a “historic step,” as its name now conforms with reality.
“The name changes not only help the outside world understand the substantial content of both associations’ work — it also verifies the continued positive development of Taiwan-Japanese relations,” Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said.
Relations have “never been better or more intimate,” he said, citing record-high bilateral trade and tourism.
Any discussion of renaming the Coordination Council for North American Affairs — which handles relations with the US — would have to wait until US President Donald Trump fills key Department of State vacancies, he said.
The ministry’s Japanese Political Affairs director, Fu Kuo-hua (傅國華), said the name changes primarily reflected a shift in Taiwan’s stance.
Japan had proposed using “Taiwan-Japan” to name the associations when official diplomatic ties were first broken off, but the proposal was rejected by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) administration, which wanted to use “Chinese-Japanese,” he said.
China yesterday called the name change a “conspiracy” and urged Japan not to send “false signals” to Taiwan and the international community.
“We strongly object to this attempt to upgrade Japanese-Taiwanese relations,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said. “We urge the Japanese government to scrupulously abide by the principles of the Japan-China Joint Communique, as well as all the promises which Japan has made to China to the present, including holding firm to the ‘one China’ principle.”
“The Japanese government should take concrete action to correct wrong methods and should not send false signals to Taiwan’s government and the international community, creating new interference for Sino-Japanese relations,” she said. “We also want to tell the Taiwanese government that any attempt to create ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’ is doomed to failure.”
Additional reporting by CNA
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats