(Reuters) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
KEELUNG, Taiwan, May 28 – A new ferry service to serve booming tourism between Taiwan and Japan began \u200con 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Yaima Maru is one of the ships that \u200bJapan’s government this year put on a list of vessels to be used to \u200bevacuate island residents to mainland Japan in case of a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China, which \u2060views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up its military pressure against \u200bTaipei over the past five years, including holding war games covering areas that have been close \u200bto Japanese waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, the ship will be linking Taiwan’s northern port city of Keelung with Japan’s Ishigaki<\/a>, which lies to the east of Taiwan at the bottom end of the Ryukyu islands, shuttling tourists back \u200band forth once a week on an overnight journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This regular route is not merely transportation \u200binfrastructure,” Ishigaki Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama said at Keelung port. “It serves as a new bridge that supports tourism, logistics, \u200ceconomic \u2060activity, cultural exchange, and education.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. has a major military base in Okinawa in the Ryukyu islands and Japan has been strengthening its defences in the area, including on Yonaguni<\/a>, the Japanese island which sits closest to Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tatsuya Ohama, president of Shosen Yaima which runs the ferry service, \u200bdeclined to directly answer \u200bquestions about regional tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This \u2060is fundamentally a matter between countries. As a private ferry operator, our first step is to get the service up and running,” he \u200btold reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan ruled Taiwan as a colony from 1895 to 1945 \u200band the \u2060two have very close economic and trade relations despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n