The government planned to dispatch a mission to Manila in an attempt to forge a cooperation pact with its neighbor to avoid future fishery disputes, despite three local fishermen still being detained by the Philippines, sources said.
"I've heard the ministry of foreign affairs here is sending a team to the Philippines for further talks," Edgardo Espinosa, de facto Filipino ambassador to Taipei, said in an interview with the Taipei Times.
"The major issue is to seek cooperation on aquaculture and fisheries although no specific provisions have yet emerged," said Espinosa, resident representative and managing director of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office.
Espinosa dubbed the upcoming negotiations as "the start of a set of talks."
With their 200km exclusive economic zones overlapping, Taiwan and the Philippines have to work out a cooperation pact to settle their disputes, Espinosa said.
Espinosa declined to give a timeline as to when it's likely for the pact to be signed.
But Wang Ming-lai (
After more than three years of difficult negotiations with the Philippines, Wang said Taiwan has agreed to exchange agricultural and fishery-technological expertise with the Philippines and assist the nation with training.
A foreign ministry official in charge of fishery issues said the recent mutiny in Manila has dissuaded Taiwan to send a delegation for further talks in the immediate future.
"We have no plan to go there immediately," the official said. "But we'll go for these negotiations sooner or later."
Taiwan and the Philippines signed a MOU on innocent passage of maritime lanes and agricultural and fishery cooperation in 1991.
The memorandum became invalid after the Philippines enacted a marine-resources law in 1998.
When asked whether it's true that Manila planned to release the three remaining Taiwanese fishermen still in detention as claimed by a foreign ministry official earlier in the week, Espinosa declined to give an answer.
He said the court in the Philippines handling illegal entry would decide how to deal with the matter.
Several Taiwanese fishing boats have recently escaped from detention in the northern Philippines, where they were held under suspicion of illegally fishing in Philippine territorial waters.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai