Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (???) touted the party’s ties with Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) following a meeting with National Diet member Keiji Furuya in Taipei Tuesday.

Chu announced on his official Facebook page that he had met with two Japanese delegations on Tuesday as part of his party’s efforts to promote and retain positive relationships with the United States, Japan, and China.

He said that the KMT had cultivated a long friendship with the LDP, of which Furuya is a member, adding that Taiwan’s relationship with the U.S. and shared democratic values were also echoed by the Japanese ruling party.

Chu went on to applaud various bilateral exchanges between Taiwan and Japan which resulted in stable cooperation in areas such as economics, technology and education.

On national defense, Chu said the KMT opts for a “defense and dialogue” approach with neighboring countries.

Chu said the KMT was quite experienced in national defense policies like Japan, and aimed to uphold the interest of the nation above all as well as turn negative interactions with China into peace and prosperity.

In addition to Furuya, who is chairman of the Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council, Chu also met with Minoru Kihara, secretary-general of the 260-member Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council

Also on Tuesday, Chu met Yasuhiro Matsuda, a Japanese political scientist and professor of international politics at the University of Tokyo and head of a research team exploring cross-straight relations, as well as the university’s researcher Huang Wei-hsiu (???) and Yoichi Kato, a visiting research fellow at Japan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel