Page 2 of 2 An awkward visitor for Tokyo
and Beijing By Hisane Masaki
bilateral diplomatic relations
being normalized in 1972, and next year marks the
30th anniversary of the 1978 bilateral peace and
friendship treaty.
In his talks with Abe,
Wen said, "China will not accept an independent
Taiwan, and I want Japan to clearly oppose
Taiwan's independence." In response to Wen's
request, Abe, who is known as a pro-Taiwan
politician, reassured the Chinese leader that
Japan
will uphold its "one China" policy and will not
support Taiwan's independence.
In stark
contrast with the Koizumi era, during which
Sino-Japanese relations were often said to be "hot
in business" amid booming trade and investment but
"cold in politics", the April meeting between Abe
and Wen was already the third in just six months.
The Japanese and Chinese governments are
preparing to set up a bilateral meeting between
Abe and Hu on the fringes of the upcoming summit
of the Group of Eight (G8) major countries, slated
for June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany.
Contrast with Ma's visit Unlike
Lee's visits to Japan, Taiwanese opposition leader
Ma Ying-jeou's trip to Japan last July did not
spark an angry response from Beijing, reflecting
the reality of recent Taiwan politics and
cross-strait relations.
After ruling
Taiwan with an iron fist for more than half a
century, the Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist
Party, lost power in the 2000 presidential
election, which pro-independence Chen Shui-bian
won.
The governing Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) led by Chen is widely seen in Tokyo as
pro-Japan and anti-China, while the
pro-unification KMT is considered anti-Japan and
pro-China.
Chen, who won re-election in
2004, is scheduled to leave office next May, two
months after Taiwanese go to the polls to elect a
new president. That contest will pit the DPP's
Frank Hsieh, a former premier, against the main
opposition KMT's Ma, a former Taipei mayor.
Since Chen became president in 2000,
cross-strait diplomatic relations have been
frosty, even as economic linkages have heated up
bilateral business. Meanwhile, relations between
the KMT and Beijing have warned up. In 2005,
then-KMT president Lien Chan became the first
high-ranking KMT leader to return to the mainland
since the party fled to Taiwan after losing the
civil war to the communists in 1949.
Japan wants status quo Over the
long term, Japan sees China as a potentially
formidable security threat. Tokyo has become
increasingly alarmed by China's rapid military
buildup and increasing naval activities in the
seas around Japan. And Japan views gravely the
possibility of a Chinese military takeover of
Taiwan as it would give Beijing control of the sea
lanes that carry the bulk of Japan's oil imports
from the Middle East.
In early 2005, the
United States and Japan identified a peaceful
settlement to tensions in the Taiwan Strait as one
of their "common strategic goals" under their
security alliance. This raised eyebrows in
Beijing, which is alarmed by any possible
interference in what it regards as its internal
affairs. The Japan-US final agreement signed in
May 2006 on the realignment of US bases and forces
on Japanese soil will promote further integration
of their military operations and pave the way for
Tokyo to assert itself in regional and world
affairs.
Japan is also investing billions
of dollars in a joint missile-defense system with
the US, which some experts say could eventually
involve Taiwan. In a lecture in 2005, the top
leader of Taiwan's de facto embassy in Tokyo
called for Japan to legislate a version of the
Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which obliges the US
to defend the island in case of an attack. Chen
has said that Japan-Taiwan relations are at their
closest since their 1972 diplomatic break and
expressed hope for a thee-way "quasi-military
alliance" among the US, Japan and Taiwan.
Like a majority of Taiwanese, however,
both Japan and the US want to see the status quo
in cross-strait relations maintained. And there
have been serious concerns in Tokyo and Washington
that a perceived sudden shift in US security
policy could embolden Chen to take steps toward
declaring formal independence, risking a
cross-strait conflict in which the US would be
obliged to intervene.
Pro-Japan
Lee To be sure, Japan has no formal
diplomatic ties with Taiwan. But its relations
with Taiwan, a capitalist democracy, have been in
full bloom in recent years. At the same time,
economic and cultural exchanges between Japan and
Taiwan have expanded. Bilateral tourism ballooned
after Japan dropped visa requirements, and Taiwan
is currently Japan's fourth-largest trading
partner.
In a project widely viewed as a
symbol of Japan-Taiwan friendship, the
345-kilometer Taiwan High Speed Line between
Taipei and Kaohsiung, which uses the Japanese
Shinkansen bullet-train technology system, fully
opened in March.
There is also strong
sympathy toward Lee, not only among many
conservative Japanese politicians but among many
ordinary Japanese. Lee studied at Kyoto Imperial
University, now Kyoto University, in the closing
years of World War II, speaks fluent Japanese and
has close ties with Japanese politicians. He even
wrote a book titled Bushido Kaidai, a
commentary on the traditional samurai
spirit, a few years ago. The DPP's presidential
candidate in next year' election, Frank Hsieh,
also studied at Kyoto University and is a fluent
speaker of Japanese.
Many Taiwanese are
said to harbor pro-Japanese sentiments. Some
Taiwanese even think that Japan's 1895-1945
colonial rule in the region contributed to the
island's current economic prosperity through the
universities, roads and other infrastructure the
Japanese left behind. According to a survey
conducted by the Taiwanese business magazine
Global Review last year, Japan topped the list of
countries to which Taiwanese would prefer to
emigrate or travel or think is the "greatest".
Lee has been staunchly pro-Japan and even
defended Koizumi's Yasukuni visits. On a flight to
Tokyo, Lee told Japanese reporters on Wednesday
that he himself wanted to visit Yasukuni, where
his elder brother is enshrined. Such a visit would
draw an angry response from Beijing.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.
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