Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) today is scheduled to board a warship with 15 lawmakers to sail to disputed waters near the Diaoyutais to demonstrate a determination to protect Taiwanese fishermen.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, however, criticized the move as "inappropriate" and "grandstanding."
"Although we recognize Speaker Wang's good intentions, we think it is meaningless and not the right thing to do because he should let the Coast Guard Administration and Ministry of Foreign Affairs take care of the matter. Instead, he is jumping to the frontline and taking the matter into his own hands," DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te (
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMESN
Bigger threat
In addition to expressing apprehension over Wang's planned trip, which he said might cause more trouble, Lai said that the nation's biggest threat comes from China. He called on the public to take China's military buildup seriously.
"With the increase in China's military budget and its successful test-fire of ballistic missiles that have a range of 8,000km, it is very inappropriate for opposition parties to treat our enemy as a friend or our sibling, or even parent," he said.
DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) said that although there was no doubt that a country should protect its fishermen and claim sovereignty over territorial boundaries, it should be the responsibility of the Coast Guard Administration to take care of fishing disputes instead of the defense ministry.
"Only under the circumstances that military action is taken or when the coast guard needs backup is the navy obliged to take counteraction, but so far I haven't seen the situation reach such a critical state," Lee said.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang's (
Wang responds
Irritated by the DPP's remarks, Wang said that the DPP should take the matter more seriously.
If boarding the warship could be interpreted as "grandstanding," Wang asked what the DPP would call it if Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) eventually decided to join the trip.
"Wouldn't it be called the same thing as well?" he said.
"It's very inappropriate for the DPP to use populism to deal with such a serious matter," he added.
Wang, however, said that he would welcome Hsieh if he were to go, because it would deliver a strong message, with the heads of the legislative and executive branches jointly declaring sovereignty and expressing their resolve to protect the country's fishermen.
Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (
Another DPP legislator, Lin Cho-shui (林濁水), said that sending warships to protect fishermen would not help resolve the problem.
Talks preferable
"Fishing disputes require bilateral negotiations, not military means," he said. "I'd really hate to see tensions with Japan heightened and hope it is the first and also the last time a warship is sent to protect fishermen."
With the nation set to conduct its 15th round of fishing negotiations with the Japanese, Lin yesterday made a five-point request asking the DPP government to put aside the sovereignty issue at the negotiating table.
Lin also called on the government to set a negotiation target of shared resources with Japan within the nation's traditional fishing grounds, in accordance with international maritime conventions and ecological standards.
The government should also adopt a more flexible approach while conducting fishing negotiations with Japan, Lin said.
"China, Japan and Korea have signed bilateral fishing accords with each other, but we are the only country that's left out of the loop," he said.
The crux of the problem lay in the nation's implacable stance as well as the mixing of sovereignty issues with fishing problems, he added.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS