Taiwan president asks Japan for law on relations

TAIPEI, Oct 31 (Reuters) Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian proposed this week that Japan enacts a law to guarantee relations with Taiwan, a government spokesman said today, despite a lack of diplomatic ties and inevitable fury from China.

Chen wants Japan to pass a law similar to the Taiwan Relations Act, a 27-year-old U S bill that pledges Washington's protection of the island against threats from nearby China, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Chien-yeh said.

Chen made the proposal during a videoconference yesterday with Japanese lawmakers and academics.

''It was from the United States that the president got his inspiration,'' Wang said at a news briefing. ''That is to say, he hopes for something like a Taiwan relations law.

''Whether it's for interactivity or for trade and commerce, relations should be tight,'' he said.

China sees Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to strike militarily if it declares independence. Beijing and Tokyo have diplomatic relations which although strained, stop Tokyo from establishing formal ties with Taipei.

Some conservative Japanese lawmakers, however, still favour Taiwan.

China roundly opposes the U S Taiwan Relations Act, which obligates the United States to aid the island militarily.

Japanese governments have interpreted their pacifist constitution to prohibit aiding an ally under attack. Japan previously occupied Taiwan for 50 years.

Japan is strengthening security ties with the United States, and in February last year the two countries identified Taiwan as a mutual security concern, generating anger from Beijing.

Tokyo has also expressed China's passage in March 2005 of an anti-secession law allowing the use of ''non-peaceful means'' to re-unify with Taiwan was worrisome.

Last week, Taiwan ruling party Chairman Yu Shyi-Kun visited Japan and urged lawmakers there to see Taiwan as a ''normal country'' rather than in island compromised by China, a party spokesman said.

REUTERS AKJ BS1629