While move indicates warming ties, it is no break with one-China policy, analysts say
Japan has sent a senior official to Taiwan for a visit in what analysts see as Tokyo’s decision to adopt more flexible policies towards Taipei. Though the visit signals improved bilateral relations with Taipei, the analysts said it in no way indicated that Tokyo was ready to provoke Beijing by discarding its one-China policy to embrace Taiwan. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Jiro Akama became the highest ranking Japanese official to visit Taiwan on Saturday since Japan switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taipei in 1972. He was on the island to chair the opening of a two-day Japanese tourism fair in Taipei, an activity organised and publicised on its website by the recently renamed Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association – which represents Japanese interests on the island. Akama’s visit received wide local media coverage as he is the first such senior official to visit the island in years, a sign that Japan was taking note of the strategic importance of the island in Sino-Japanese ties. Some local news media also played up the likelihood that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was trying to use warming ties with Taiwan to counter the mainland in their dispute over the Diaoyu Islands, or Senkakus as Japan calls them, in the East China Sea. Since January, Japan changed the name its of de facto embassy in Taipei from the Interchange Association to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association to reflect the agency’s de facto diplomatic status – a change seen by Taiwanese authorities as a sign for improved ties.
