President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday lauded the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and the Ministry of National Defense for escorting Taiwanese fishermen to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) on Tuesday, calling the move a declaration of Taiwan’s sovereignty over the islands.
“Under the escort of coast guard vessels, our fishermen sailed close to the Diaoyutais. Taiwanese fishermen declared to the world that the Diaoyutais are part of the territory of the Republic of China [ROC], and have been occupied by Japan for 117 years,” he said at a luncheon with members of the Combined Logistics Command.
To assert the nation’s sovereignty over the islands, 75 Taiwanese vessels sailed near the Diaoyutais early on Tuesday, escorted by 10 CGA ships. When Japanese patrol boats sprayed the Taiwanese fishing boats with water to drive them away, Taiwanese coast guard vessels retaliated with their own water cannons, resulting in a tense standoff.
Photo: CNA
Given the rough sea conditions, the Taiwanese boats started returning to the fishing port of Nanfangao (南方澳) in Yilan County several hours later, with CGA vessels remaining about 7km from the Diaoyutais to see that all fishing boats left the area safely.
Ma yesterday said the coast guard played a crucial role in safeguarding the safety of Taiwanese fishermen and said he had called CGA head Wang Jinn-wang (王進旺) to convey his gratitude for the agency’s assistance.
“We will not put our military on the front line, but they will be well-prepared to take full control of the situation in the Diaoyutais,” he said.
Ma said the island chain has been the fishing grounds of Taiwanese fishermen for decades and the government fully supports fishermen’s move to protect their right to fish in those waters.
In related news, the CGA dismissed a media report that national security authorities had negotiated beforehand with Japan and China, asking Japan not to be too provocative toward the Taiwanese boats and for China not to send ships to the area.
The negotiation was to “ensure that everything followed the script,” the Chinese-language China Times quoted an unnamed senior official as saying.
Lee Mao-jung (李茂榮), deputy director of the CGA’s Maritime Patrol Directorate-General, who led the CGA flotilla that escorted the protest, said it was impossible to simulate the confrontation, which included several dangerous actions such as the firing of water cannons and the release of smoke.
CGA Deputy Minister Cheng Chang-Hsiung (鄭樟雄) said the agency did inform Japanese authorities of the fishermen’s protest in advance and asked them not to interfere or to judge the situation wrongly.
They were told that “we will have countermeasures to any action they take,” Cheng said.
Additional reporting by CNA
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS