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Ex-President Lee arrives on Japan’s Ishigaki

Ex-President Lee arrives on Japan’s Ishigaki

Ex-President Lee arrives on Japan’s Ishigaki

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former President Lee Teng-hui on Saturday arrived on the Japanese island of Ishigaki, where he is scheduled to hold a speech the following day.
The island lies just 333 kilometers from Taiwan, and the disputed Diaoyutai Islands, known in Japan as Senkaku, resort under its authority.
Lee, 93, has paid several visits to Japan, but mostly to the main islands and cities, and not to smaller relatively out-of-the-way areas.
He is due to address an association of young mayors about the state of Taiwan-Japanese relations. In the past, Lee has fueled controversy in Taiwan for supporting Tokyo’s claims of sovereignty over the Diaoyutai, which both Taiwan and China also claim.
Saturday afternoon, Lee and his wife were welcomed at Ishigaki’s airport by the mayor, local officials and politicians, supporters, and by Taiwan’s new representative in Tokyo, former Premier Frank Hsieh.
During the era that Taiwan was occupied by Japan, from 1895 to 1945, Taiwanese farmers reportedly migrated to Ishigaki and laid the foundations of its pineapple growing industry. Lee was scheduled to visit a memorial to those farmers, reports said.
Since leaving the presidency in 2000, Lee has visited Japan eight times, reports said, with one visit in 2008 to Okinawa, the main island of the Ryukyu group, to which Ishigaki officially belongs.
Taiwan and Japan maintain close relations, which are sometimes disrupted by fishing disputes centered on small islands. Earlier this year, the two countries were involved in a war of words about Okinotori, which Japan says is an island and can thus be the center of a 200-mile economic exclusion zone, but which Taiwan says is only a reef.
Taiwan and Japan are expected to hold wide-ranging talks on maritime affairs, possibly next month.