President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has reached an internal resolution on Taiwan’s territorial claims over the South China Sea, which stresses the nation’s sovereignty over islands in the area, but makes no mention of the so-called “U-shaped line” and “historical waters,” a Presidential Office source said yesterday.
The government wants to differentiate Taiwan’s claims from China’s and avoid the impression that Taipei and Beijing have a unified stance on the issue, said the source, who asked not to be identified.
The U-shaped line — also known as the “11-dash line” — was featured in the “Location Map of the South China Sea Islands” drawn up by the Republic of China (ROC) government in 1947. After the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party changed it to a “nine-dash line.”
Photo: Chinatopix via AP
After the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, on Tuesday ruled that Beijing’s claims of historical rights over the area based on its nine-dash line were invalid, the Ministry of the Interior and the Mainland Affairs Council issued statements stressing the ROC’s sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.
However, neither statement mentioned the U-shaped line or historical waters, although both referred to the map. That sparked speculation that the government has dropped the U-shaped line claim.
The source said the government’s position is clear: The ROC has sovereignty over South China Sea islands, including Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), and there is no need to mention the U-shaped line or historical waters to assert that position.
Another source said that when the map was drawn in 1947, it only marked the names and locations of the South China Sea islands and 11 demarcation lines, but terms like the “U-shaped line” or “11-dash line” did not exist then.
The demarcation lines were later referred to as the “11-dash line,” and after China proposed the “nine-dash line,” academics created the term U-shaped line to stress the similarity between Taiwan’s and China’s claims.
The term, like the so-called “1992 consensus,” was created and fashioned in retrospect, the source said.
A report by the US Department of State mapped the nine-dash line and 11-dash line and found that they represented different coordinates, suggesting they were different demarcation lines, the source said.
The Presidential Office source questioned the nature of the 11 demarcation lines on the map, saying there are no clear definitions on whether they represent national boundaries, island demarcation lines or historical territorial waters.
Neither the 11-dash line nor the U-shaped line is official terminology or a legal term, the source said.
When asked whether the Tsai administration has made it a policy not to mention the U-shaped line, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) did not give a direct response at a routine news conference yesterday afternoon.
“The ROC government stands firm on its claim of sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and their relevant waters, which are rightfully our rights in accordance with international law,” Huang said.
Huang said that all relevant documents, including those dating back to 1947, when the ROC government drew the map, show that the official name used is “islands in the South China Sea (南海諸島).”
Additional reporting by Stacy Hsu
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)