The government will talk with Japan as soon as possible to resolve fishing grounds disputes related to waters off Okinawa, Fisheries Agency Director Sha Chih-yi (沙志一) said on Sunday.
The waters around Okinawa have been a key fishing ground for Taiwanese, but Japan has claimed rights over the area, Sha said.
Okinawan fishermen have urged Japan’s government to charge Taiwanese fishing boats a fee for fishing and ask them to get prior approval when entering the area’s waters, the Nikkei Shimbun reported.
“Fishing by Taiwan and Japan in their overlapping fishing grounds is a fact. The disputes should be resolved through rational negotiations to protect the rights of Taiwan’s fishermen,” Sha said.
The two countries have held 16 rounds of fishery talks over the years to try to settle similar issues, Sha said, but they have failed to reach a consensus.
The number of Taiwanese fishing boats that allegedly catch tuna illegally in the area has continually increased, the Nikkei reported.
In 2009, a total of 442 Taiwanese boats were given warnings by Japanese coast guard patrol boats in the area, and the number increased to 500 last year, the newspaper said.
“I have no idea when bilateral fishery talks will take place, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been handling the issue,” Sha said.
Meanwhile, Okinawan fishermen were upset about Taiwanese boats often fishing in prohibited fishing zones, Japanese media reported.
Taiwanese boats should follow the rules and regulations of fishing zones, Sha said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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