Japan has responded positively to a request by Taiwan that the fishing grounds in disputed waters off the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) be expanded, but how to delineate the area remained to be discussed, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said yesterday.
Lin made the remarks in response to reporters’ inquiries regarding the second round of preparatory talks between Taipei and Tokyo on Wednesday which aimed to resume bilateral fisheries talks on fishing rights in their overlapping territories.
Discussions between Taiwan and Japan on the issue have been stalled since 2009, while the previous 15 rounds of negotiations since 1996 have yielded few results.
Though no conclusive consensus has resulted from the negotiations on Wednesday, talks have seen some progress on issues related to the protection and management of fishery resources and in the delineation of fishing grounds, Lin said.
In the first preparatory talks held in November, Japan suggested that fishing grounds be separated by a “geographical middle line” through the overlapping areas. Taiwan proposed a “proportional middle line” that would take into account the two countries’ areas, populations and economic activities.
On Wednesday, both sides agreed to work on a compromise to allow Taiwanese fishermen to operate in a bigger area than is currently the case within the country’s temporary enforcement line, Lin said.
Lin said he was grateful that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has attached great importance to the fisheries talks and that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been very supportive of reaching an agreement with Taiwan to resolve the longstanding controversy.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching