Vice President Annette Lu received a delegation of councilors from the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) this afternoon and gave warm welcome to Councilor Oe Yasuhiro and his colleagues who have visited Taiwan a number of times.
Vice President Lu indicates that while Taiwan is holding the three-in-one local elections, she is reminded of Prime Minister Koizumi's call for parliament re-election in order to push for postal reform and greatly admires his courage. She also invites the visitors who themselves are campaign veterans to take the opportunity to observe how the elections in Taiwan and Japan differ.
The vice president also introduces to the visitors the Democratic Pacific Union (DPU) that was jointly founded by twenty-eight democratic countries in the pan-Pacific region in August this year. Because the participants of DPU include a significant number of former or incumbent parliamentarians, the DPU hopes to organize a Pacific parliamentarians Caucus to help each other in congressional reforms and further strengthening up the democratic system in countries. Vice President Lu hopes that the visitors would join the initiative when it is put to action.
On behalf of the delegation, Councilor Oe Yasuhiro expresses his thanks for the time of Vice President Lu and indicates that this is his fourth visit to Taiwan. He and a few fellow DPJ colleagues decided to make this trip during the recess of the House of Councilors. Councilor Oe points out that the DPJ has been consistently attentive to the Taiwan-Japan relations, and has set up a Japan-Taiwan Security and Economic Research Committee, and several DPJ members came to Taiwan for the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally last year. Councilor Ikeguchi expresses that Taiwan's election is exciting and lively, and he likes to take this opportunity to learn more about it.