Apr 30 07:09 AM US/Eastern
TAIPEI, April 30 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Taiwan and Japan have signed a memorandum of understanding dated Friday to advance cooperation and exchanges across a wide range of sectors, heralding a full recovery in unofficial relations after a period of tension stemming from sovereignty issues.
The MOU said Taiwan's East Asia Relations Commission and Japan's de facto mission in Taiwan, the Interchange Association, reached a consensus to deepen economic, legal, cultural, security, environmental, technological and scholastic ties, as well as stronger links between local governments.
The 15-point memorandum stands as a counterpoint to deepening ties between Taiwan and China, though its low-key release underlines the sensitivity of the Taiwan-China relationship at a time of cross-strait detente.
Critics have portrayed a pending Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between Taiwan's Nationalist Party (KMT) government and Beijing as evidence Taiwan is engaging China at the expense of economic ties with other countries.
On Tuesday, President Ma Ying-jeou told the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents Club the government would only pursue new free trade agreements after the ECFA with China is signed.
But Vice Premier Eric Chu told visiting member of the Japanese diet Yoshihide Suga on Friday the government hopes to sign an FTA with Japan as soon as possible.
The Taiwan-Japan MOU does not refer to FTA negotiations. It states, however, that "to advance economic exchanges, the two sides shall...increase sharing of information and ideas" and take their economic relationship to "the next step."
Reflecting recent tension over disputed territorial waters between Taiwan and Japan, the MOU promises improved communication in maritime security and order.
It also commits Taiwan and Japan to strengthening links between the commercial, technological, cultural and tourism sectors.
The MOU completes a period of diplomatic rebalancing that followed tensions generated by clashes between Taiwanese fishermen and Japanese patrols and comments on Taiwan's sovereign status by the former Japanese representative Masaki Saito.
Taiwan's legislators featured prominently in both incidents, threatening to travel to Japanese waters by boat in the former case and demanding Saito's removal in the latter.
A source at the Interchange Association told Kyodo News the document generally attempts to reflect progress in the Taiwan-Japan relationship since the severing of formal ties in 1972.
The source also said a subtext is the erosion of linguistic ties between Taiwan and Japan.
From Japanese annexation in 1895 to the end of World War II, Taiwan was Japanese territory but governed as a colony. Children were required to learn Japanese and today most Taiwanese old enough to have attended school by the early 1940s can still speak Japanese.
Since the arrival of the KMT government, however, the number of Japanese speakers has dwindled.
The MOU commits both sides not only to broader understanding and the promotion of Taiwan and Japan studies, but also increased support for scholastic enterprise and exchange students.
Other areas of enhanced cooperation in the MOU include disaster preparedness and reconstruction, fighting crime, immigration controls, energy conservation and alternative energy, media exchanges, agriculture and fishing.
Hsieh Huai-hui, deputy director of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's department of international affairs, welcomed the MOU.
She said the DPP administration under former President Chen Shui-bian "started the process" for much of the ground covered in the document, but the party nonetheless supports the latest developments.
She added she hopes the KMT government is not simply paying "lip service" to Tokyo.
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