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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Tsai, Lai remember Abe on anniversary of assassination
Portrait photos of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe are placed on an altar as flowers offered by mourners are moved during the one year commemoration ceremony of his assassination at Zojoji Temple in Tokyo yesterday. Photo: Reuters
/ Staff writer, with CNA
President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） and Vice President William Lai （賴清德） yesterday remembered former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on the anniversary of his assassination during a campaign event last year.
Abe had demonstrated his support for Taiwan on numerous occasions, and promoted deeper exchanges between Taiwanese and Japanese, Tsai wrote on Twitter in Japanese.
After stepping down as prime minister in September 2020, Abe began advocating that “a Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan,” Tsai wrote, against the backdrop of strained cross-strait relations and increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan.
Tsai thanked the late prime minister for “his great contributions” in promoting relations between their countries, adding that such ties would continue to develop and consolidate.
Lai, who attended Abe’s private funeral in July last year on a previously unannounced trip to Tokyo, wrote on Facebook that Taiwanese would never forget Abe’s support, and pledged to continue deepening the nations’ bilateral relationship.
COOPERATION
Close cooperation between Taiwan and Japan is important for the peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, Lai said, adding that both countries stand together stand on the front line of opposing authoritarian expansion.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, died on July 8 last year at the age of 67, hours after he was shot twice by a man with a makeshift shotgun on a street in Nara, near Osaka, during an election campaign event.
He served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2020.
Abe has been seen by some in Taiwan, especially supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party, as a staunch supporter of the country, partly because he introduced the idea that “a Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan.”
In an article published by the Los Angeles Times months before his death, Abe urged the US to abandon its long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, under which Washington does not commit itself to sending troops to help Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Abe’s nationalistic policies had made him a controversial figure in Japanese politics, particularly after his government in 2015 passed legislation allowing for the deployment of Japanese troops for combat missions, which led to protests in Japan.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
