Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa yesterday told the National Diet that “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is highly important” to Tokyo.
Her remarks were the third time since 2022 that a Japanese foreign minister mentioned the importance of cross-strait peace and stability in their opening speeches to the new session of the Diet.
In 2002 and last year, then-Japanese minister of foreign affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi also spoke about Beijing’s military activities in waters near Taiwan and the firing of missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Photo: AFP
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, along with foreign, finance and economic ministers by tradition each give a policy speech at the opening of a new session at the Diet.
Kamikawa, who visited Ukraine last month, also told lawmakers that Japan “must not allow” the use of force to change the “status quo.”
Kishida did not mention Taiwan by name during his speech, but said that Japan would take “a necessary stance” in response to China’s attempt to impose unilateral changes in the East China Sea and South China Sea by force.
He urged Beijing to act responsibility.
Kishida and Kamikawa separately said that Japan continues to support mutually beneficial strategic relations with China.
They also called on China to lift an import ban on Japanese seafood, reiterating that Japan’s discharge of treated radioactive water from the disabled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has been proven to be safe.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
RSS