DPP chairman risks Beijing backlash by meeting Ishihara
Su Tseng-chang, the Taiwanese party's chairman, may boost his standing with supporters but will anger Beijing by meeting Japanese nationalist
The chairman of Taiwan's main opposition party may win over hard-core pro-independence supporters on the island by meeting a right-wing Japanese activist at the centre of the Diaoyu Islands dispute today, but analysts say the move could backfire.
During a five-day trip to Japan, Su Tseng-chang, chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will meet former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, according to Taiwanese media.
The reports said the planned meeting had sparked a debate between local pro-Beijing and pro-independence politicians.
Professor Chang Ling-chen, a political scientist at National Taiwan University, said the meeting would enrage Beijing, as Ishihara was the initiator of a campaign in April 2012 to buy the disputed Diaoyu Islands, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
The campaign resulted in the Japanese government stepping in to buy three islands from their Japanese owners, the Kurihara family, for about 2 billion yen (HK$170.43 million) in September, triggering condemnation from Beijing and a wave of anti-Japan protests across the mainland.
"Su dares to meet Ishihara because there are many people in Taiwan who miss the stable lives they had during the colonial era under the Japanese from 1895 to 1945.
"Many believe the Diaoyus belongs to Japan, not the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China," Chang said.