Analysis: Japan-Taiwan Ruling Parties Meet in Tokyo
Analyst Rintaro Nishimura tells TaiwanPlus what a meeting between representatives of the ruling parties of Taiwan and Japan means in a year when both countries are undergoing leadership changes.
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00:00What specific issues do you foresee being discussed at this meeting?
00:04Well, this meeting, I think, has two purposes.
00:07One being that since the new Lai administration has come in, this is the first big meeting
00:12between the two ruling parties.
00:14And so this is kind of like a meet and greet of sorts to kind of set the stage for continued
00:20engagement with the new government.
00:22I don't think there will be any firm commitments, but there will be discussions about how Japan
00:26can support Taiwan in a certain military conflict that may happen.
00:32I think the Japanese side will specifically talk about the shelters and the fact that
00:39there's a lot of concern about how Japanese nationals and companies would be protected
00:44in a certain situation where there would be armed conflict.
00:47Now, this is the fifth time this sort of meeting has been held.
00:51How has Japan over the past five or so years managed to continue these meetings while at
00:55the same time avoiding upsetting China?
00:58Japan has continued to play this sort of balancing game.
01:01While Japan has increased its engagements with Taiwan, say with the 2 plus 2 and also
01:07these cross-party diet member meetings, delegations going to Taiwan, they've also continued to
01:14engage the Chinese side.
01:16And last month, actually, there was a flurry of visits from, you know, all the way from
01:20the government level to diet members and also the National Diet sending a delegation
01:25to meet the National People's Congress.
01:28So there's been, it's not been a complete shift away from China to Taiwan.
01:33Japan's in a period of political transition with Prime Minister Kishida announcing he
01:37won't seek re-election.
01:38How is the upcoming election in Japan likely to play into this?
01:42I think at the moment, at least, because the 2 plus 2 talks are happening before the election
01:48or before Kishida steps down, there's not going to be any sort of big change in how
01:53talks would go.
01:54I mean, obviously there's the, I guess from the Taiwanese perspective, there could be
01:59concern that, you know, a new prime minister may change directions.
02:02And so maybe these talks will not be as valuable compared to if Kishida were to stay on.
02:08But I think for the most part, you know, all of these candidates who are potentially going
02:12to make a run, they may have very different viewpoints on how to approach foreign policy
02:18and, you know, relations with Taiwan.
02:21But the core of the kind of party's approach to Taiwan and to China, I don't think those
02:27things will change regardless of who becomes prime minister.