Right-wingers seek to lay legal basis for closer ties with Taiwan

IN A move set to worsen already fraught Sino-Japanese ties, a group of Japanese lawmakers is drafting a Bill that will lay the legal basis for closer ties with Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province.

The Bill, said to be modelled on the United States’ 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), a law based on which the US has been selling arms to Taiwan to counter China’s military threat, has drawn fierce opposition from the Chinese foreign ministry. It comes amid warming political ties between Beijing and Taipei.

… The final Bill could be a hard version making a security commitment to Taiwan and including the possibility of weapon sales or a softer one calling for stronger economic and people-to-people exchanges, Dr Li Mingjiang of Nanyang Technological University told The Straits Times.

“A softer version is more likely but even that is a provocation,” he added. “The Japanese want to send a message that it has diplomatic cards to play, but it’s an unnecessary provocation, given how bad relations are now.”