President Ma Ying-jeou met with Japan's East Asian Friendship Association President Tokuichiro Tamazawa on the afternoon of March 20 at the Presidential Office. Mr. Tamazawa is also a member of Japan's House of Representatives. President Ma extended a warm welcome to Representative Tamazawa on behalf of the government of the ROC (Taiwan).
President Ma commented that this marks the 17th visit to Taiwan by Representative Tamazawa, and is the fourth time that the two of them have met. The president noted that he paid a visit to the Japan-ROC Diet Members' Consultative Council during a trip he made to Japan two years ago. Last year, Representative Tamazawa visited Taiwan during the presidential campaign period here and met with him at his campaign headquarters. In August when President Ma led a delegation to Paraguay to attend the inauguration of President Fernando Lugo, he again had a chance to see Representative Tamazawa, who served as Japan's special emissary to the proceedings. The two had the opportunity to have breakfast together, he said. Meanwhile, Representative Tamazawa was the first person to learn that the ROC (Taiwan) had decided to dispatch John Feng to serve as its new representative to Japan.
Representative Tamazawa expressed his appreciation to President Ma for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with him. He also said he fully agrees with President Ma's stance that Taiwan and Japan should table disputes existing between the two and first engage in negotiations on fishing rights.
President Ma said considerable room exists for relations to be enhanced between Taiwan and Japan. It is with this in mind that he has specially designated this year as "The Year to Foster the Special Partnership between Taiwan and Japan" and has floated several ideas, including increasing avenues for communication between the two sides, strengthening cultural interaction, signing a working holiday agreement that would provide a means for more young people from Taiwan to visit and get to understand Japan, establishing a representative office in Sapporo, inaugurating flights between Taipei's Songshan Airport and Tokyo's Haneda Airport, establishing a Taiwan Cultural Center in Tokyo, and creating a Yoichi Hatta Memorial Park in the Jianan Plain.