Japan Press Weekly

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2008 May 21 - 27 [WORLD]

Japan is willing to provide additional assistance to quake-hit China: Foreign minister

Foreign Minister Komura Masahiko said Japan will consider extending additional assistance to the quake-hit areas of China’s Sichuan Province if requested to do so by the Chinese government.

He made the remark on May 21 at the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in response to Japanese Communist Party representative Kasai Akira’s call for the government to provide more emergency assistance to China.

Senior Vice Foreign Minister Onodera Itsunori said that the government has responded to Chinese requests by approving 500 million yen in emergency assistance to China and that it has implemented part of it.

On May 20, a Japanese medical team arrived in China to provide medical care in Sichuan Province for about two weeks.

Chinese request

Kasai referred to a list of emergency supplies that China urgently needs, which Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai presented to JCP Chair Shii Kazuo who visited the Chinese embassy on May 15.

He said that while the task now is to save as many lives as possible, it is also important for Japan, a country with frequent earthquakes, to use its experience, expertise, and technologies it has developed so far to support the quake-hit areas’ reconstruction efforts, which may take months or even years.

Foreign Minister Komura answered, “We will discuss with China how we can cooperate.” - Akahata, May 22, 2008