President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) presented former Director General of Japan’s National Security Secretariat, Shigeru Kitamura, with the Order of the Shining Star with Great Cord in recognition of his contribution to deepening ties between Taiwan and Japan.
Tsai welcomed Kitamura and his family to Taiwan for the ceremony and expressed deep gratitude to him for his profound friendship with the country and long-term dedication to deepening Taiwan-Japan relations.
Kitamura, who was in 2019 appointed head of the National Security Secretariat by then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, was a key driver for the country’s new national security strategy published at the end of last year, she said.
Photo: Screenshot from the presidential website.
The revised strategy states that “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are for the peace, stability, and prosperity of foreign society. “
Taiwan and Japan are vital partners with each other, Tsai said.
In recent years, the two sides have triumphed over the difficult situations posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to deepen economic and industrial relations and trade cooperation, he said.
Total bilateral industry between Taiwan and Japan and Japanese investment in Taiwan reached record levels last year, he added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) met Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at an APEC summit last month and agreed to foster a partnership in the semiconductor sector, he said.
Tsai thanked Japan for reiterating the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, adding that Taipei would continue to work with Tokyo to safeguard regional peace and Abe’s peace of an open and Indo-free Pacific.
Kitamura thanked Tsai for conferring the ornament and Japan’s representative, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), for facilitating the ceremony.
Thanks to acceptance by Taipei’s Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan, Kitamura established communication channels with Taiwan while serving in the Japanese National Police and holding positions in intelligence and national security in the 1990s, he said.
Joining negotiations on a fisheries agreement between Taiwan and Japan, signed in 2013, allowed him to establish a close link between domestic affairs and foreign relations, he said.
Kitamura also expressed gratitude to the government and other Taiwanese for their special feelings toward Abe and for offering their condolences following his assassination last year.
The world is keeping a close eye on the presidential elections in Taiwan and the United States next year and their effects on the situation, he said.
As the security environment around Japan and Taiwan becomes increasingly severe, the two countries deserve to join forces to deter external threats by sharing diplomatic and defense intelligence and joining forces. economic and technological, he said.
He pledged to continue to promote the values of an open and flexible democracy.