The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday urged the government to abolish its temporary enforcement line in the Bashi Channel and assert its rights in its 200 nautical mile (370km) exclusive economic zone (EEZ) amid escalated tensions with the Philippines.
The Fisheries Agency has unilaterally designated the 20° north latitude line as its temporary enforcement line, marking the area where the navy will provide protection for Taiwanese fishermen on the South China Sea.
DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) told a press conference that Taiwan should abolish the line since Manila has never recognized it.
Given the public’s outrage over at Philippine Coast Guard personnel’s killing of 65-year-old fisherman Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成) on May 9, Taiwan should be more assertive in exercising its full rights in the EEZ to provide better protection to Taiwanese fishing boats, the lawmaker said.
The Philippines does not recognize Taiwan’s self-proclaimed EEZ, the majority of which overlaps with Manila’s 200 nautical mile EEZ, because Taiwan was not given the opportunity to sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) cited yesterday as the legal basis for Taiwan’s maritime rights in the Bashi Channel.
Asked about UNCLOS, Philippine presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told a press conference at Manila yesterday that the shooting incident occurred in the Philippines’ EEZ.
Meanwhile, the DPP caucus said Ma must explain the abrupt change in the government’s assessment of Manila’s response to its ultimatum seen between a press conference at 1am on Wednesday and a news conference at 10pm on the same day.
At the first press conference held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry described Manila’s response as “positive,” but needed more “clarity.”
The Ma government announced a series of sanctions against the Philippines at the second press conference held at the Executive Yuan, saying that Manila’s apology was “insincere.”
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) said Ma, as a president, “cannot and should not evade his responsibilities by making Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) a scapegoat in the mix-up.”
“Lin would not have called the press conference and made those comments if he was not authorized to do so by Ma,” she said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS