TAIPEI ¨C Taiwan President Lai Ching-te showed his support for Japan on Thursday with a lunch of Japanese-sourced sushi, after China indicated it would ban all imports of the country¡¯s seafood in an escalating dispute over the Chinese-claimed island.
Tensions between the two countries ignited after new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said this month that a Chinese attack on Taiwan threatening Japan¡¯s survival could trigger a military response.
Lai, in pictures on his social media feeds, showed himself eating a sushi lunch of yellowtail from Japan¡¯s Kagoshima Prefecture and scallops from Hokkaido.
¡°Today¡¯s lunch is sushi and miso soup,¡± he wrote on his Facebook and Instagram feeds, and used the same wording in Japanese on his X account. Taiwan¡¯s government, which rejects Beijing¡¯s sovereignty claims, has in recent years been subject to similar food export bans by China, including of Taiwanese pineapples and fish, in what Taipei has said is part of a Chinese pressure campaign.
Speaking to reporters at parliament earlier on Thursday, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said China¡¯s use of economic coercion and military intimidation to ¡°bully other nations are already too numerous to mention individually.¡±
¡°At this critical juncture, we must also support Japan in effectively stabilizing the situation and halting the Chinese communists¡¯ bullying behavior,¡± he said.
Japan and Taiwan have a close though unofficial relationship and deep cultural and business ties. Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 until the end of World War II in 1945.
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