TOKYO (AP) — Taiwan’s top economic representative in Japan said he boycotted this year’s memorial marking Nagasaki’s 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese city, accusing Nagasaki officials of being pro-China and insulting Taipei.Lee Yi-yang, head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo, said in a social media post that seat assignments showed Nagasaki “deliberately denied Taiwan’s status as a nation, completely disregarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity.” Lee said he and two of his deputies boycotted the ceremony because their designated seats as representatives of Taiwan were not among those reserved for diplomatic missions. Lee instead sent a lower-ranked official from Fukuoka. Nagasaki acted as “a pawn of China’s insistence that Taiwan is not a state and has no sovereignty,” Lee’s office said in a statement.
Nagasaki officials said seats for Taiwanese officials were located near other envoys and not clearly distinguished as nondiplomatic guests. Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki was expected to speak to reporters later Monday.Japan and China normalized diplomatic ties in 1972, ending war animosities. The joint communiqué officially recognized Tokyo’s diplomatic ties with Beijing and ended those with Taipei, though Japan and Taiwan still have close economic and trade ties through nongovernmental channels between the two sides.At Sunday’s memorial at the Peace Park in the southwestern city, representatives from 98 countries and three international organizations, including the United Nations, the European Union and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Nagasaki officials said.
