The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands are an inseparable part of the Republic of China’s (ROC) territory and that any different views expressed by former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) were his personal opinion.
Lee, who is visiting Okinawa, was quoted by the Central News Agency yesterday as saying at a luncheon hosted by the Okinawa county magistrate yesterday that “The Diaoyutai islands have belonged to Japan since a long time ago.”
Like Taiwan, the island group was part of Japanese territory during its occupation from 1895 until 1945, he said.
Lee has been criticized in the past for making similar comments.
Following a swearing-in ceremony yesterday for ministry officials, including John Feng (馮寄台), the nation’s new representative to Japan, who will be leaving on Saturday to take up his post, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) told reporters that the Diaoyutai islands are under the jurisdiction of the ROC government and that Lee’s views did not dovetail with those of the administration.
Feng said the dispute over the islands was a prolonged issue and should be resolved through diplomatic means.
“We acknowledge that Japan believes the Diaoyutai islands are part of its territory, but this can only be resolved diplomatically,” he said.
Controversy over the sovereignty of the island group was re-ignited this year when a Taiwanese fishing boat sank after colliding with a Japanese patrol vessel on June 10 near the islands, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japanese. Taiwan, Japan and China all claim rights over the islands.
Taiwan and Japan held a 15th round of fishery talks in July 2005 to try to resolve the dispute. While both sides agreed to hold another round of talks in March 2006, they never took place.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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