President Chen Shui-bian met with Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro at the Office of the President on April 14. At the meeting, the president and the governor exchanged their views on cross-strait relations and China's relations with Japan and the United States.
The president told his guest that the current meeting between former Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan and Chinese President Hu Jintao only sidesteps direct dialogue with Taiwan's elected government. Since Lien and Hu's first meeting in 2005, nothing but the "one-China" consensus has been maintained, said the president.
Speaking about the rise of China and its relations with Japan and the United States, the president told Governor Ishihara that he does not agree with China threatening Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi because of his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a place honoring Japan's 2.5 million war dead.
Governor Ishihara then explained to President Chen that the US government has changed its attitude toward China in the past few months on account of China befriending anti-US Central American leftist regimes and the government in Sudan.
China has never had a "civil society" and any attack on Taiwan's democracy would be an unbearable loss to Japan and other Asian countries, Governor Ishihara told President Chen.
Governor Ishihara was accompanied by Taiwan's Vice Foreign Minister Chang Siao-yueh and Representative of Association of East Asian Relations Lo Fu-cheng.