Taipei, Sept. 9 (CNA) A two-day international symposium was held in Taipei to discuss Taiwan studies in Japan and Japan studies in Taiwan.
The annual symposium was organized by East Asia Relations Commission, Taiwan's de facto embassy in Japan, from Sep. 9- 10 and gathered a group of Japanese and Taiwanese scholars.
A total of eight theses will be presented in two days and wide-ranging topics such as security issues of Japan and Taiwan, Taiwan's education and textile industry during the Japanese colonial era, the U.S. government's restraint on Taiwan during the Cold War era, and Taiwanese cinema will be discussed.
Interestingly, mutual relations between Taiwan and Japan have been growing since 1945, the end of the Japanese colonial era, as Taiwanese did not hold any resentment against Japan, said East Asia Relations Commission President Lo Fu-chen.
"And the resistance against Japan in the colonial era became the threshold of what we call the 'Taiwanese identity' today, " he said.
"Taiwan and Japan are similar in some way, " Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng said. Tu cited Prime Minister frontrunner Shinzo Abe's new book "Toward a beautiful country" as saying that both countries are facing similar issues such as becoming a normal country and educational reform.
Ikeda Tadashi, Chief Representative of Interchange Association Japan's Taipei Office -- Japan's de facto embassy in Taiwan, also welcomed more interchange between two countries.
"Taiwan people's friendliness toward Japan has been unparalleled, especially in comparison with China and South Korea, " he said.