KEELUNG, Taiwan (Reuters): A new ferry service to serve booming tourism between Taiwan and Japan began on Thursday on a ship that could be pressed into service to evacuate people on southern Japanese islands in the event of a war in the region.
The Yaima Maru is one of the ships that Japan's government this year put on a list of vessels to be used to evacuate island residents to mainland Japan in case of a crisis.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up its military pressure against Taipei over the past five years, including holding war games covering areas that have been close to Japanese waters.
For now, the ship will be linking Taiwan's northern port city of Keelung with Japan's Ishigaki, which lies to the east of Taiwan at the bottom end of the Ryukyu islands, shuttling tourists back and forth once a week on an overnight journey.
"This regular route is not merely transportation infrastructure," Ishigaki Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama said at Keelung port. "It serves as a new bridge that supports tourism, logistics, economic activity, cultural exchange, and education."
The US. has a major military base in Okinawa in the Ryukyu islands, and Japan has been strengthening its defences in the area, including on Yonaguni, the Japanese island which sits closest to Taiwan.
Tatsuya Ohama, president of Shosen Yaima, which runs the ferry service, declined to directly answer questions about regional tensions.
"This is fundamentally a matter between countries. As a private ferry operator, our first step is to get the service up and running," he told reporters.
Japan ruled Taiwan as a colony from 1895 to 1945, and the two have very close economic and trade relations despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties. China has been angered by stepped-up support from Tokyo for Taipei.
In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo. That infuriated Beijing and triggered a deterioration in ties.
Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. (Reporting by Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by John Mair) -- Reuters
