Japan needs to face up to its wartime past and develop its relationships with neighboring countries “from a forward-looking perspective,” Representative to Japan Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳) told the legislature yesterday.
Shen made the remarks when asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) and Yang Ying-hsiung (楊應雄) his views on the recent spate of nationalist tones and gestures of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other politicians.
Lin said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had failed to take action and protest against the Japanese government’s “denial and distortion of history” and demanded that the ministry act like South Korea, which has accused Japan of not looking squarely at history.
Despite the importance of the relationship with Japan and the cordial ties between the two countries’ people, the government should lodge a protest against Japan over the matter “in a timely and appropriate manner,” Yang said.
“What we saw in Tokyo was that, apart from what the Japanese government has said, dissenting opinions have arisen. The issue is still evolving and we will pay close attention,” Shen said.
The representative office in Tokyo has never softened its stance and expressions on issues of concern to national interests, Shen said, adding that Taiwan would continue to maintain friendly bilateral relations.
Several Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers asked him about his “lack of fluency” in Japanese. Shen replied that he had been working on learning the language and attends Japanese-language classes every week.
Shen added that the language issue has never hindered him from “precisely” conveying the nation’s position on issues related to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) East China Sea Peace Initiative in his talks with the Japanese side.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
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A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
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