IMPORTANT TIES: Signatories of the Japan-led trade partnership are to meet next month, and could discuss ways for new members to accede, minister John Deng said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 16, 2018
By: Lee Hsin-fang and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Government efforts to smooth over Taiwan-Japan relations in private have begun in

earnest in the hopes of persuading Japan to support Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), despite Taiwan’s ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures.

In a referendum held alongside the Nov. 24 local elections, 78 percent of nearly 10 million voters cast ballots in favor of referendum No. 9, which asked: “Do you agree that the government should, in connection to the March 11 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster, continue to enforce the food imports ban on 31 regions in Japan, including agricultural and food products from Fukushima and the surrounding four prefectures and municipalities (Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba)?”

Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono on Friday last week said that the vote makes it unlikely that Taiwan’s CPTPP bid would succeed and Tokyo did not rule out taking the issue to the WTO.    [FULL  STORY]