Taiwan has registered its unwavering assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea with the Philippine government, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
“The Republic of China [ROC] possesses sovereignty over the South China Sea. We would like to cooperate with other countries to explore resources, but will not allow any act of intrusion upon our sovereignty,” said James Tien (田中光), director-general of the Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
The remarks came in response to continued actions by Manila to conduct a bid for the oil and gas exploration in the Reed Bank, part of the contested Spratly Islands (南沙群島).
The ministry said in a press release on Monday that the Spratlys, the Paracel Islands (西沙群島), Macclesfield Bank (中沙群島) and the Pratas Islands (東沙群島), as well as their surrounding waters, were ROC territory based on historical and geographical circumstances, and international law.
Taipei urged Manila and other claimants to refrain from making unilateral moves that would impact peace and stability in the region, the statement said.
Since March last year, the ministry has repeatedly issued statements asserting the ROC’s sovereignty over the South China Sea.
According to a Central News Agency report in Manila, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) declined to offer a formal response to Taipei’s statement because of its adherence to the “one China” policy and the absence of diplomatic relationships between the Philippines and Taiwan.
DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez was quoted by the agency as saying the oil and gas fields lie within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift