President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) asserted Taiwan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands yesterday and called on Tokyo to negotiate fishing disputes and the issue of sovereignty calmly and peacefully. His comments came one week after a Japan Coast Guard vessel collided with a Taiwanese fishing boat that later sank.
“We are not trying to provoke anybody, but the Diaoyutais are part of our territory. Why can we not go there?” he said.
Ma said he hoped the dispute would not affect the friendly relations between the two countries and that he hoped to see Tokyo apologize as the families of the crew wanted the dispute to end peacefully.
Ma made the remarks during a meeting with local reporters at the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon.
Ma said that he would approve the resignation of Representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (�?�) and that he felt sorry that this had to happen.
He also expressed regret over Koh’s refusal to appear for an interpellation session at the legislature, saying it was the duty of a government official.
Ma said he realized that the sovereignty issue was an ongoing dispute between Taipei and Tokyo, but that both should make an effort to resolve the problem peacefully, including negotiating fishing rights and the sovereignty of the Diaoyutais.
“We are an independent sovereign state and we will do our best to protect our territory and sovereignty,” he said.
“We hope Japan will take into account the friendly and cooperative relations between Taipei and Tokyo. We must both take care to preserve such relations,” he said.
When asked whether he wanted to resolve the dispute over the sovereignty of the islands during his four-year term, Ma said that the public should not expect a quick resolution, but negotiating fishing rights was important to prevent similar incidents from happening.
Whether such negotiations would bear fruit depended on the attitude of Tokyo, Ma said, because Taipei could not do it alone.
The president, an avid defender of the nation’s sovereignty over the Diaoyutais when he was younger, has come under fire for failing to reassert sovereignty over the island chain following the June 10 incident.
Ma defended his position yesterday by saying that he was doing a better job in this regard than former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Besides, such disputes were the business of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government Information Office and the Coast Guard Administration, he said, adding that those agencies would be failing to do their jobs if the president had to “jump to the front line” following an incident like this.
The public should not expect the president to do so, he said.
While reports have claimed that the Presidential Office pressured legislators and the Ministry of National Defense into canceling a planned trip to claim sovereignty over the islands, Ma declined to confirm whether he had called a National Security Council meeting on Monday night and whether any cancelation was related to that meeting.
Ma said that he had first heard about the sinking of the fishing boat when Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) telephoned him on the morning of June 10.
He did not issue an immediate directive, but asked Liu to get a better understanding of the situation because it was a bad idea to “send in the armed forces if a boat sunk.”
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