Japan's de facto embassy in Taiwan has bestowed a medal on Wang Jin-pyng, a former leader of the island's Legislative Yuan, to recognize his contribution to advancing bilateral ties.
Hiroyasu Izumi, Japan's top representative in Taipei, conferred on Wang the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan's highest honor for foreigners, on behalf of Emperor Naruhito.
"As the representative of Japan, I'm extremely grateful and touched by what (Wang) has done over the past 30 years," Izumi said.
Izumi praised Wang for establishing a legislative subgroup in 1992 to advance exchanges among Taiwanese legislators and their Japanese counterparts.
Izumi also recognized Wang for leading an 18-person delegation to visit Japan almost immediately after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami to express condolences and present relief funds on behalf of the people of Taiwan.
Taiwan donated more than 6.8 billion New Taiwan dollars (about US$224 million), a sum that far outpaced such heavyweight contributors as the United States.
A former legislator of the main opposition Nationalist Party who served as the top legislation position from 1999 to 2016, Wang said he was instructed by then President Lee Teng-hui to organize a legislative subgroup in 1992 to advance bilateral ties.
The group has since then developed a close friendship with the Japanese nonpartisan parliamentary group dedicated to promoting relations with Taiwan, he said.
"The devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan manifested that friendship," Wang said.
Wang said Taiwan's donation was only returning aid that Japan provided the island in 1999 after an earthquake struck, claiming more than 2,400 lives.
Wang said Taiwan and Japan have been close geographically and historically. While official ties were severed in 1972, people-to-people exchanges have remained robust.
Wang attributed the friendship and mutual trust between Taiwan and Japan to the "genuine interactions" among every individual on both sides.