Taiwan’s navy is seeking to develop closer cooperation with its counterparts in neighboring nations and plans to strive to play a more active role in disaster relief missions in the Asia-Pacific region, according to senior navy officials at an international conference in Taipei yesterday.
Admiral Chen Yung-kang (陳永康) said the nation has made much progress in reducing tension in the Taiwan Strait, while being a vigorous partner in maintaining regional security and expanding commercial maritime traffic.
“Our nation is situated in the ‘first island chain,’ in the main artery of Pacific trade and shipping routes. Taiwan is an important cornerstone of Asia-Pacific regional stability,” Chen said at the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) conference.
Chen said Taiwan’s navy is seeking to join a regional multilateral cooperation platform, and to participate in exercises and international programs for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The two-day conference entitled “A Paradigm Shift in Maritime Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific” involves more than 20 participants from Asian nations, as well as from Australia, Britain and the US.
Another conference theme, “The Impact of Non-Traditional Security Threats in Asia-Pacific and the Response of Naval Diplomacy,” deals with the challenges of maritime piracy and terrorism, human and drug trafficking, along with fishery and territorial disputes.
Naval experts pointed to the choke point in the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea archipelago and islets in the East China Sea as hotspots posing maritime security challenges.
Other speakers stressed the need for nations to work together on the threats posed by climate change and the increasing severity of storms, which have brought great destruction to small island nations and low-lying coastal areas.
Retired Indian naval official Arun Prakash advocated a broader region-wide maritime cooperation platform. Prakash recommended the inclusion of navies and emergency rescue units from South Asian nations to establish an “Indo-Pacific Maritime Partnership,” a multinational task force to deal with natural disasters and humanitarian assistance.
Taiwan is a member of the international SLOC group, along with the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines.
Randall Schriver, president and chief executive of the US-based think tank the Project 2049 Institute, Project 2049 Institute executive director Mark Stokes and retired Japanese naval officer Yoshida Masanori are due to present papers at the conference today.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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