How a new tourist ferry from Taiwan to Japan could play a different role in times of crisis

KEELUNG, Taiwan – As part of a surprise weekend getaway for his girlfriend, Taiwanese computer engineer Allen Chen booked a new overnight ferry from the port city of Keelung in northern Taiwan to Ishigaki island in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture.

The eight-hour voyage, which is operated by Taipei-based shipping company Wagon Group, promises passengers that they will wake up to the ocean breeze in Japan, after which they can enjoy activities that Ishigaki is known for, such as snorkelling and hiking, before catching the return journey home three days later.

“We’ve been to Japan many times, but never by sea. I just thought this would be a fun, novel experience,” Chen, 33, told The Straits Times as the couple prepared to check in for their trip on June 11.

For its trial period in June, the ferry, which can carry up to 545 passengers, is shuttling tourists back and forth between Keelung and Ishigaki once a week, departing on Thursday night and returning on Sunday night.

It will increase to two weekly round trips in July. Fares per person start from NT$2,000 (S$82) for a mattress in a 15-person dormitory room with shared bathroom facilities to NT$3,400 for a standard private room and NT$10,500 for the most luxurious suite.

But while it is marketed as an affordable and leisurely alternative to flying, the ferry route – which marks the first regular maritime travel connection between the two locations in 18 years – has received significant interest for reasons other than tourism.

That is because the 21,688-tonne passenger ship, the Japanese-owned Yaima Maru, is one of the vessels the Japanese government has placed on a list to evacuate island residents to mainland Japan in the event of a crisis – for instance, if regional tensions erupted into open conflict.

“Although the newly launched ferry service is presented primarily as a tourism initiative, it carries significant geopolitical implications,” said Chen Yu-hua, an associate professor in international relations at Akita International University in Japan.

Ishigaki, famed for its pristine beaches and highly prized wagyu beef, lies some 400km from Okinawa Island, and more than 2,000km from the Japanese capital of Tokyo, but it is only 270km east of Taiwan.

Okinawa Prefecture sits strategically within the Nansei Shoto, an island chain that stretches 1,200km between the southern tip of Kyushu on the Japanese mainland and Taiwan, which is considered critical to the country’s defence in the event of a military conflict between China and Taiwan.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has in recent years ramped up its military pressure against Taipei, including conducting massive war games in areas near Japanese waters.

Amid these regional tensions, Tokyo has been shoring up its own south-western defences, including deploying missiles, radar units and troops to remote island outposts, and holding emergency and evacuation drills to prepare residents for both natural disasters and potential geopolitical conflict.

“Strengthening the defence and resilience of Japan’s south-western island chain has been a central component of Japan’s security strategy since the 2010s,” Chen told ST.

Besides facilitating the evacuation of Japanese nationals in a Taiwan contingency, the Yaima Maru ferry could enhance wartime resilience by providing an additional transportation and logistics link in the event of a Chinese military blockade, he added.

For tourism not security

Before the launch of the ferry, the only option to get to Ishigaki was to fly, with one airline running a direct flight from Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport up to four times a week. Fares for the hour-long flight cost around NT$15,000 for a round trip.

Ferry executives insisted that the new route is primarily for tourism and will be expanded to include integrated freight services later on. The ship can carry up to 90 cargo containers, operators said.

Tatsuya Ohama, president of Japanese company Shosen Yaima, which owns the ship, declined to directly answer questions about regional tensions at a launch event in Keelung for the service late May.

“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.

Tiger Hong, general manager of Wagon Group, which operates the service, denied that politics had played a role in the planning for the route.

“There was absolutely no diplomatic element involved, because we conducted all the assessments of this route entirely based on commercial considerations,” he said at the same event.

For Ishigaki mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama, the new ferry route represents a vital bridge facilitating tourism and cultural exchange. Once freight services begin, products, including the famous Ishigaki beef, could also be exported to Taiwan too, he said.

“This route is not merely a piece of transportation infrastructure but a brand new bridge connecting the multi-faceted development of tourism, logistics, the economy, culture and education,” he told reporters at the launch.

Chen, the computer engineer, booked a private room for himself and his girlfriend, and was more worried about the weather than anything else. The couple had been looking forward to swimming and snorkelling in Ishigaki.

“It’s been storming so heavily recently – I’m just concerned that the waters will be too choppy,” he said.

Tourism boost

The new ferry route is expected to further boost already high tourism levels between Japan and Taiwan.

Japan is currently the top source of international tourists to Taiwan, according to official figures. Around 1.48 million Japanese tourists visited the island in 2025, a year-on-year increase of more than 12 per cent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Japan consistently ranks as the top overseas destination for Taiwanese travellers. Some 6.8 million Taiwanese tourists travelled to Japan in 2025, making them the third largest source of foreign arrivals to the country, after South Korea and China.

Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945, and the two maintain a close relationship built on mutual affinity, shared democratic values, and deep people-to-people ties despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties.

According to regular surveys by the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association – Japan’s de facto embassy in Taiwan – more than 75 per cent of Taiwanese say that Japan is their favourite country.

“Japan and Taiwan have viewed each other favourably since the 1990s, and initially, this mutual goodwill stemmed largely from historical and cultural ties,” said Chen, the international relations expert.

Since the 2010s, however, this relationship has increasingly been shaped by shared concerns over China’s growing military and strategic assertiveness around Taiwan, he said.

“In particular, policymakers in Tokyo believe a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a very possible future contingency,” Chen asserted.

In November 2025, 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.