China has begun combat-ready patrols in the waters around a disputed group of islands in the South China Sea, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Asked what China would do in response to Vietnamese air patrols over the Spratly Islands (南沙群島), ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng (耿雁生) said Beijing would “resolutely oppose any militarily provocative behavior.”
“In order to protect national sovereignty and our security and development interests, the Chinese military has already set up a normal, combat-ready patrol system in seas under our control,” he said.
China is involved in a long-running dispute with Vietnam and the Philippines about ownership of the South China Sea and its myriad, mostly uninhabited, islands and atolls. Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have claims.
Philippine officials said on Wednesday that Chinese fishing boats had returned to a disputed shoal despite an agreement to clear the area of all vessels.
The current standoff between China and the Philippines in the Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines began in April when Manila accused Chinese fishermen of poaching in its exclusive economic zone, including the shoal. During the tensions, both sides have sent government ships to the area.
A recent agreement saw both countries withdraw vessels, but Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said six Chinese fishing boats and 17 smaller dinghies were spotted by a Philippine plane inside the lagoon on Monday afternoon. He said five Chinese government ships were sighted outside the lagoon in the vicinity of the shoal.
In Hanoi, Vietnam has also protested a weekend announcement by China’s CNOOC Ltd (中國海洋石油) that it was opening nine oil and gas lots for international bidders, in areas overlapping with existing Vietnamese exploration blocks.
Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said the lots being offered by China lie entirely within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. He said in a statement posted on Tuesday on the ministry’s Web site that China’s move was illegal and the bidding should cease immediately.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
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