China strongly warned Japan not to send official to Taiwan in 1994, archives show
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The diplomatic records declassified on Dec 24 underscore how the Taiwan issue has long been a potential source of friction in Sino-Japanese relations.
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TOKYO - China strongly warned Japan against visits to Taiwan by key government figures during a meeting between their foreign ministers in 1994, according to diplomatic records declassified on Dec 24, underscoring how the Taiwan issue has long been a potential source of friction in Sino-Japanese relations.
Mr Tsutomu Hata, then Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, was visiting China when he was told by then Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen on Jan 8, 1994, that official government trips to Taiwan were “unacceptable”, although Beijing would not “take issue with economic ties in the private sectors” between Japan and the self-ruled island, the records showed.
The Chinese warning was apparently aimed at reports of a supposedly planned visit to Taiwan by then Japanese Industry Minister Hiroshi Kumagai, which was to follow a trip there by a senior official from his ministry in December 1993.
After Mr Hata returned from China, media reported that the Taiwan trip was dead in the water.
At that time, the Japanese Foreign Ministry viewed Taiwan relations as a “delicate issue in which a single misstep could shake the foundation of Japan-China ties”, the documents showed.
According to the Foreign Ministry records, Mr Qian urged Japan to comply with the 1972 bilateral joint communique, in which Tokyo said it “fully understands and respects” China’s position that Taiwan is “an inalienable part” of its territory.
The communique was signed as Japan and China normalised their diplomatic ties in 1972, with Tokyo recognising the Communist-led People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, switching its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China.
Mr Hata told Mr Qian that Japan would never take a “two-China” policy, which led then Chinese Premier Li Peng, who also met Mr Hata, to welcome the remarks as reaffirming the position that there is only one Chinese government.
A preparatory material created by the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s China division ahead of Mr Hata’s visit to China had noted “concerns” over a possible shift in Japan’s Taiwan policy under then Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who launched a coalition government in August 1993 that briefly ended the Liberal Democratic Party’s dominance of power since 1955.
Visits by incumbent Japanese Cabinet ministers to Taiwan as well as a trip to Japan by Mr Lee Teng-hui, then Taiwan’s president, “warrants careful handling in particular”, the material said.
In November 1993, Mr Hosokawa had an exchange with a senior Taiwanese official during a dinner party held on the fringes of an international meeting in the United States.
With the Japanese industry ministry official travelling to Taiwan the following month, China was apparently raising its guard against signs of Japan resuming government-to-government exchanges with Taiwan despite having severed diplomatic ties.
The diplomatic records were released as Japan and China have seen their ties increasingly sour in recent months following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in Parliament suggesting that an attack on Taiwan could constitute an existential threat to her country and potentially trigger a response from its defence forces. KYODO NEWS
