Minister of the Interior Chen Wei-zen’s (陳威仁) inspection of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea was an exercise of Taiwan’s sovereignty over its territory and was none of any other nations’ business, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Chen on Saturday presided over the opening of a renovated wharf and a newly constructed lighthouse on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), the largest of the disputed Spratly Islands.
The move drew Vietnam’s ire, whose foreign ministry spokesperson Le Hai Binh on Sunday said that it is Vietnam that, based on legal and historical evidence, has sovereignty over the Spratlys and the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea.
Le said any action on the islands without Vietnamese government’s consent would be “illegal and invalid.”
In response, the ministry said it is beyond doubt that the Republic of China (ROC) enjoys the rights governed by international law over the South China Sea, including the Spratlys and the Paracels, Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha Islands, 中沙群島) and the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and surrounding waters.
As the largest naturally formed island in the Spratlys, Taiping has always been part of the ROC, under the jurisdiction of Cijin District (旗津) of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, the ministry said.
Over the years since the ROC has stationed personnel on the islet, the nation has never had any armed conflict with other nations and has never obstructed sea or air travel around the island or interfered with overflights, the ministry said.
Vietnam’s accusation that Chen’s inspection of the island has damaged regional peace is not factual and runs counter to the universal knowledge of the international community, it added.
It said the ROC’s upgrading of infrastructure on the island was aimed at “supply” and “maintenance” that would improve local personnel’s quality of life and help accomplish the island’s missions as a base for scientific research, emergency rescue and environmental protection.
Building a lighthouse on the island helps guarantee the safety of navigation for vessels operating nearby, it said.
Taiwan has declared that it plans to transform Taiping into an island of peace, ecological preservation and low carbon emissions, and would help realize President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) South China Sea peace initiative.
The peace initiative is based on the principles of “setting aside sovereignty disputes” and “jointly developing resources,” the initiative said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater