BEIJING: The Chinese Foreign Ministry Tuesday deplored a Japanese lawmaker’s visit to China’s Taiwan, calling the move “egregious.”
According to reports, Keiji Furuya, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker of Japan and chairperson of the Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council, is in Taiwan for a visit from August 22 to 24 and will meet Tsai Ing-wen.
Furuya has visited the Taiwan region of China in disregard of China’s stern démarches, which grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs, blatantly violates the one-China principle and the spirit of the four China-Japan political documents and sends a seriously wrong signal to the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry noted in a statement. The spokesperson added China will take resolute and strong measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Noting Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s sacred territory, the spokesperson warned that the Taiwan question bears on the political foundation of China-Japan relations and the basic trust between our two countries.
“The Japanese side made a solemn commitment on this question to the Chinese side,” the spokesperson pointed out.
Japan once kept Taiwan under its colonial rule for half a century, the statement read, adding Japan is historically responsible for its serious wrongdoing to the Chinese people and has all the more reason to be prudent in its words and deeds.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
