Keiji Furuya, a Japanese lawmaker who leads a parliamentary caucus promoting ties with Taiwan, expressed support for Taiwan’s application to join a Tokyo-led trade bloc on Friday and said his group will offer its help.
During a virtual speech at a think tank forum in Taipei, Furuya, chairman of the Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council, said his council welcomed Taiwan’s bid for membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
“We hope this key partner will soon join the CPTPP … Regarding the numerous barriers that must be resolved prior to accession to the CPTPP, our Council pledges to do everything it can in providing related assistance,” he said, without elaborating.
Furuya also said Taiwan, Japan and the United States should deepen their ties by collaborating on security issues and holding exchanges between lawmakers in the face of challenges posed by China in the Indo-Pacific region.
“China seeks to unilaterally and forcibly change the status quo,” said Furuya, adding: “We must take substantive first steps on the establishment of a trilateral security cooperation platform for Japan, the United States, and Taiwan.”
He proposed that members of the militaries of the three sides engage in cultural and ceremonial exchanges, arguing that such activities would achieve positive results without creating tensions.
Furuya also pledged to co-host the Japan-U.S.-Taiwan Legislative Strategic Dialogue on a regular basis to “discuss short-, medium-, and long-term policies and adopt pragmatic and effective countermeasures.”
The first edition of the dialogue was held virtually in July, with the delegations of the three countries led by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty, and Taiwan’s Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (???), respectively.
Meanwhile, a Japanese business group representing 500 Japanese enterprises in Taiwan, urged the Japanese government, which is also the CPTPP chair this year, to support Taiwan’s bid for CPTPP membership in its annual white paper published Friday.
At the same time, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Taipei also called on Taiwan’s government to lift its decade-long ban on imports of Japanese food items from areas affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster of March 11, 2011.
The group said the governments of Taiwan and South Korea are the only two in the world that have not relaxed restrictions on Japanese food imports from Fukushima Prefecture, and it urged Taiwanese authorities to reassess its policy to bring it in line with international norms.
Following the nuclear disaster, Taiwan’s government, then led by the Kuomintang, banned the imports of food and agricultural products from Japan’s Fukushima, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi and Chiba prefectures.
It further tightened the restrictions in 2015 when products from those prefectures were discovered on store shelves in Taiwan in violation of the ban.
Since regaining power in May 2016, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party government has said it has considered lifting the ban, but has run into heavy domestic opposition.
Nevertheless, at a Cabinet press conference to announce Taiwan’s CPTPP bid on Sept. 23, the government acknowledged it will need to deal with the issue once Japan brings it up in discussions.
After submitting its application, Taiwan will begin accession talks with all 11 members in the bloc to seek their support, according to the Cabinet.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel