Dozens of protesters yesterday gathered outside the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association’s office in Taipei amid reports that the city of Ishigaki in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture was planning to change the administrative designation of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台).
The islands — known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan — are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea claimed by Taiwan, China and Japan.
The Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) yesterday cited Japanese local news reports as saying that a proposal was to be made at an Ishigaki city council meeting to change the administrative designation of the islands from Tonoshiro to “Tonoshiro Senkaku.”
Photo: CNA
According to an English-language report published on Sunday by the Asahi Shimbun, Ishigaki Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama defended the proposal in an interview with the paper on Saturday, saying that the change aims to streamline administrative work by further dividing the Tonoshiro area.
The Japanese-language Okinawa Times on Saturday also reported on the proposed name change.
Several groups were represented at the rally in Taipei, including the organizers, the Diaoyutai Education Association, the Taiwan Association for Recovery of the Diaoyutai Islets and Zhong Hua Bao Diao Association, with protesters shouting slogans such as “Diaoyutais are ours,” and “Safeguard sovereignty, protect fishing rights.”
Photo: CNA
Organizers in a letter of protest said that Japan’s naming or renaming of the islands would be a serious encroachment on Taiwan’s territory, sovereignty and fishing rights.
For generations, the waters surrounding the islands have been a traditional fishing area of fishers based in ports in Yilan County and Keelung — especially those in the Nanfangao (南方澳) fishing harbor — the letter said.
It called on Japan to “reflect on and correct” an aggression toward and annexation of other parts of Asia it said began in the 19th century, and to “completely abolish militarist ideology,” saying that the dispute over the islands still exists because Japan has failed to do so.
The protesters had hoped to deliver the letter to an association official in person, but no one from the association immediately responded to their requests.
Asked about the issue during a news briefing in Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that according to information gathered by the ministry, the council only submitted the proposal yesterday and would vote on the issue on June 22.
The ministry has expressed its serious concern about the matter to Japan, while reiterating Taiwan’s sovereignty over the islands, Ou said.
Taiwan’s sovereignty rights over the islands would not be altered just because another country or its local government renames them, she said.
The nation’s abiding position is that any disputes should be resolved through peaceful means, and Japan and China should restrain themselves to avoid escalating tensions in the region, Ou said.
Taiwan would continue to monitor the situation on the islands and in nearby waters, and would take action to defend its sovereignty and fishers’ rights, she added.
Additional reporting by Lin Chia-nan
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,