In a move thick with political undertones, the Kaohsiung City Government's plans to open the Pratas Islands (
The proposed project was certainly helped by a recent decision to remove troops stationed on the islands and replace them with a civilian force.
Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, LIBERTY TIMES
Then, last week, defense minister Tang Fei (
Naval officials have also mentioned possible tourist developments on the islands.
The Pratas Islands are situated 430km southwest of the southernmost tip of Taiwan. The biggest island is 8km across, and possesses a sizable runway slightly longer than the landing strip on Kinmen Island, Taiwan's heavily fortified island in the Taiwan Strait.
The area is virtually untouched, with white sand and coral reefs teeming with tropical fish.
The plan, say city officials, is to develop the islands into a center for scuba diving, fishing and other water sports.
Fang Lee-hsing (
"The coral reefs are quite spectacular," says Fang, "and on a par with those of (Australia's) Great Barrier Reef."
The downside to these attractions is the lack of basic infrastructure on the islands. There is no fresh water, no electricity, and more significantly, nowhere to stay, at least for the time being. However, officials said that to preserve the environment, development will be kept to a minimum, as will the number of visitors permitted to travel to the islands.
Visitors will either fly in and out the same day, or sleep on a cruise ship offshore. The journey by boat takes about 12 hours from Kaohsiung, so cruises to the Pratas Islands would be promoted as three-day packages.
For some, however, the real issue, lying quite literally under the surface, is oil. There are potentially huge deposits of petroleum and natural gas in the South China Sea near the Pratas Islands, the Paracel Islands, Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands. These islands and reefs, though, are claimed either in part or in whole by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. Beneath the sea bed are also possible gold reserves, the exploration of which has been put off by extreme water depths in some places, but mainly by complex territorial disputes between the countries with competing claims over the islands.
With so many nations vying to lay claim over the tiny islands, Taiwan hopes that by using tourism in the area, it can gain a foothold without igniting controversial debate over prospecting for oil.
Liu Tai-ying (
Illustrating the importance Taipei attaches to the potential for investment in the area, Liu has set aside over NT$100 million for future tourist development of the area.
According to Tsai San-lang (
He said both sides have come to the conclusion that it would be better to put aside boundary disputes and jointly explore the area for petroleum.
Rising demand for oil in China and Taiwan has pressed the issue and forced both sides to retreat from unbending territorial claims.
But handing control over the Pratas Islands development to Kaohsiung may also be a strategy for the central government to avoid tangling with Beijing, ever suspicious of moves in the South China Sea.
Significantly, this is the only major policy initiative of opposition DPP Kaohsiung Mayor Hsieh's administration that the central government has actively supported.
Hsieh, who has recently struggled for funding for Kaohsiung's planned MRT system, encountered little opposition when applying for a NT$29 million budget from the central government for Kaohsiung's Pratas Islands plans.
A military official last week acknowledged the project's strategic implications.
"Once the islands become a vacation point, any military conflict involving them will tend to become an international issue," the official said.
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