Taipei, March 12 (CNA) Taiwan will host the General Assembly of the Asian-Pacific Parliamentarians’ Union (APPU), an alliance that aims to preserve peace and democracy in the region, in 2025, according to a Legislative Yuan statement Tuesday.
It was announced during the 52nd APPU General Assembly held Tuesday in the Japanese capital Tokyo that Taiwan will host the meeting next year. Papua New Guinea will hold it in 2026.
At the event, which spans three days overall and is being attended by parliamentarians from 13 countries across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific, all three draft resolutions proposed by Taiwan were accepted, the statement said.
One called for APPU member states to support Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the statement added.
Lawmakers including Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, as well as the Kuomintang’s Ko Chih-en (柯志恩), spoke at the general assembly to garner support for Taiwan’s participation.
Wang said climate change has no borders and that climate change issues have nothing to do with politics. Hung pointed out that Taiwan has used high-tech devices to help several Pacific nations effectively battle climate change.
Ko said climate change needs to be dealt with promptly and that Taiwan has the ability and is willing to help the international community tackle environmental issues.
The cross-party Taiwan delegation was led by Vice Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang (江啟臣). On Monday they met separately with Japan’s Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki, and Vice President of the Liberal Democratic Party, former Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asō.
According to the Legislative Yuan, both Tamaki and Asō extended a warm welcome to the Taiwanese delegation in their respective meetings and said they hoped to strengthen bilateral ties.
Tamaki thanked Taiwan for its help following the Noto earthquake in January 2024 and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Tamaki added that the opening of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Kumamoto plant in February had helped the Japanese public understand more fully the importance of the trade and security relationship between the two countries.
Given the theme of the APPU meeting this year is to focus on major disaster prevention and risk reduction in the context of climate change, Chiang said he hoped Taiwan, Japan, and all member countries would expand cooperation in the area.
He added that in addition to strengthening Taiwan-Japan relations, Taiwan will continue striving to participate in international events, including those held by the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and the International Criminal Police Organization.
Asō said in the subsequent meeting that he hoped Japanese lawmakers would strengthen communications and establish close contact with all of Taiwan’s parties to boost collaboration, so the two sides would be able to react timely if an incident were to occur in the Taiwan Strait.
Chiang said stability across the Taiwan Strait was crucial to international safety and prosperity and that Taiwan would actively seek to collaborate with like-minded countries such as Japan and the U.S., which he said he believed would help achieve stability and prosperity.
He added that Japan being the first point of call for a Taiwanese legislative delegation since the forming of the new Legislature in February showed the two countries were not only trade partners but also shared core values such as freedom, human rights, and democracy.
The APPU was founded in 1965 as the Asian Parliamentarians’ Union by parliamentarians from five nations in Asia — Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand — with the aims of achieving and preserving freedom and democracy, thereby securing peace and prosperity in Asia, according to the APPU website.
