TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan President Lai Ching-te showed his support for Japan on Thursday with a lunch of Japanese-sourced sushi, after China indicated it would halt all imports of the country’s seafood in an escalating dispute over the Chinese-claimed island.
Tensions between the two countries ignited after new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said this month that a Chinese attack on Taiwan threatening Japan’s survival could trigger a military response.
Lai, in pictures on his social media feeds, showed himself eating a sushi lunch of yellowtail from Japan’s Kagoshima and scallops from Hokkaido.
“Today’s lunch is sushi and miso soup,” he wrote on his Facebook and Instagram feeds, and used the same wording in Japanese on his X account.
Taiwan’s government, which rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, has in recent years been subjected to similar food export bans by China, including of Taiwanese pineapples and fish, in what Taipei has said is part of a Chinese pressure campaign.
Speaking to reporters at parliament earlier on Thursday, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said China’s use of economic coercion and military intimidation to “bully other nations are already too numerous to mention individually.
“At this critical juncture, we must also support Japan in effectively stabilising the situation and halting the Chinese communists’ bullying behaviour,” he said.
Addressing lawmakers later, Lin said Taiwanese should make more visits to Japan and buy more Japanese goods to show their friendship with the country.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Taiwan was an inseparable part of China’s territory.
“No matter what show the Lai Ching-te authorities put on, it cannot change this ironclad fact,” she added.
Beijing views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Japan and Taiwan have a close though unofficial relationship and deep cultural and business ties. Japan ruled Taiwan, which lies just over 110 km (68 miles) from Japanese territory at its closest point, from 1895 until the end of World War Two in 1945.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Kate Mayberry)
