Just as I was about to give up all hope for Taiwan's maritime policy, I was delighted to hear that the Ministry of National Defense has announced that it will be building a landing strip on Ita Aba (Taiping Island 太平島), one of the Spratly Islands, and that this project will be completed in three months. With the 2005 Taiwan Ocean Year drawing to a close, finally there has been a proposal that will lend substance to that name.
The government's South China Sea policy is often criticized as passive and ineffective. Because of rapid developments in the South China Sea in recent years, Taiwan's role has been marginalized.
In mid-March, the national oil companies of the Philippines, Vietnam and China signed an accord to conduct research in the Spratly Islands for economic purposes. Last month, China signed a communique with Vietnam to state that the agreement was an important contribution to realizing the aims of ASEAN's Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, bringing about greater stability and harmony to the region.
China and Vietnam also agreed to provide active support for companies operating in the area to ensure that the agreement was adhered to, and that cooperation could achieve rapid results.
China followed this with a series of declarations signed with other nations stating that the South China Sea had become a "sea of peace, amity and cooperation." Taiwan, of course, was ostracized from all of this. For Taiwan, the South China Sea is not the sea of cooperation, but one of infractions of its territorial rights. It is not a sea of friendship, but a sea of animosity from which Taiwan is being driven. If Taiwan does not act to counter this, all rights to the area will be given away.
Now that construction of the landing strip has been confirmed, all agencies involved should actively cooperate and look more closely at ways of protecting the nation's territorial claims in the South China Sea. This will be necessary if we are to pave the way for effectively exploiting its resources, maintaining secure air links and maritime security and finding an opportunity to participate in regional dialogue.
We should also pay attention to the response of countries in the region, especially China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.
In addition, Taiwan should strengthen its defense of Ita Aba and give considerable thought to whether the navy should again assume this duty, or whether a coast guard detachment should remain at its post.
The South China Sea Task Force (under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan) and the Coast Guard Administration should convene as soon as possible to discuss appropriate measures and outline policy.
I also want to suggest that after the completion of the runway on Ita Aba, either the president or vice president should fly to the island and make a policy statement regarding Taiwan and the role it will play in the South China Sea, Southeast Asia and the Taiwan Strait.
If circumstances are too sensitive for either of these officials to visit the island, the government should consider inviting the mayor of Kaohsiung or the mayor of Taipei to do so in their place.
In the same way that Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara took a boat to the southernmost point of Japanese territory before unveiling a plaque and going diving off Okino Torishima, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could go swimming or jogging around the island of Ita Aba.
Song Yann-huei is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.
Translated by Ian Bartholomew
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) on Thursday last week urged democratic nations to boycott China’s military parade on Wednesday next week. The parade, a grand display of Beijing’s military hardware, is meant to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. While China has invited world leaders to attend, many have declined. A Kyodo News report on Sunday said that Japan has asked European and Asian leaders who have yet to respond to the invitation to refrain from attending. Tokyo is seeking to prevent Beijing from spreading its distorted interpretation of wartime history, the report
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China yesterday, where he is to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin today. As this coincides with the 50 percent US tariff levied on Indian products, some Western news media have suggested that Modi is moving away from the US, and into the arms of China and Russia. Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation fellow Sana Hashmi in a Taipei Times article published yesterday titled “Myths around Modi’s China visit” said that those analyses have misrepresented India’s strategic calculations, and attempted to view
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) stood in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa on Thursday last week, flanked by Chinese flags, synchronized schoolchildren and armed Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops, he was not just celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the “Tibet Autonomous Region,” he was making a calculated declaration: Tibet is China. It always has been. Case closed. Except it has not. The case remains wide open — not just in the hearts of Tibetans, but in history records. For decades, Beijing has insisted that Tibet has “always been part of China.” It is a phrase
RSS