Former SDF Joint Staff Chief Named Adviser to Taiwan Govt

Taipei, March 21 (Jiji Press)--Shigeru Iwasaki, former chief of the Japanese Self Defense Force's Joint Staff, has been appointed as a political adviser to the executive branch of Taiwan's government, it was learned Friday.

It is unusual for a foreigner to hold such a post, and extremely rare for a former senior SDF official. Iwasaki, 72, was the second Japanese to be appointed to the post, after Takao Nozaki, a businessman in Tainan, southern Taiwan, was named last August.

Amid military pressure from Beijing, the administration of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te apparently hopes to strengthen Taiwan-Japan ties in the field of security through the appointment of Iwasaki.

The political adviser is a non-paid, part-time position, and the list of such advisers is not publicly available.

Iwasaki served as chief of the SDF Joint Staff from 2012 to 2014, when tensions between Japan and China soared over Japan's nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but also claimed by China.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]