Pan-green lawmakers yesterday asked why former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not implement suggestions he made of ways to uphold the nation’s sovereignty over Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) while he was president.
At a news conference on Thursday, Ma said that as he is no longer in office, he would refrain from talking too much about the issue of the South China Sea, instead urging patience from the public as the new government acts to safeguard national sovereignty, adding that it needs time and space to do so effectively.
However, Ma yesterday listed 10 suggestions to protect sovereignty over Itu Aba in a letter published by the Chinese-language United Daily News.
On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands, ruled that high-tide features of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), including Itu Aba, are “rocks” rather than “islands” and therefore not entitled to 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zones.
“While Ma was in office he would have taken many things into consideration to hinder announcing maritime territorial claims,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said. “Why now, after he has stepped down from the presidency, would he attempt to guide others in doing that which he himself could not accomplish?”
Chen said that a first installment of Republic of China (ROC) marine territorial claims did not include Itu Aba or even Kinmen and Matsu, while in November 2009, then-minister of the interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) promised to announce a second installment of territorial claims, but that was delayed after a dispute with Japan in September 2012 over the Diaoyutais (釣魚台).
Chen asked whether the delays and continued claims to the Diaoyutais were demonstrations of hostility toward Japan by the then-Ma administration to appease China.
New Power Party caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said that “if Ma truly has good intentions, he should admit his failures and reflect quietly on his term.”
Hsu said that Ma’s devotion to “one China” means that his interests in the benefits of the nation are implied to be the benefits of “one China.”
Hsu said that in the face of the ruling in The Hague regarding China’s “nine-dash line” South China Sea claims, Ma’s discourse is outdated and should be discarded.
To persist with Ma’s approach would be to tie Taiwan’s fate in the South China Sea to that of China and make the nation look like a regional troublemaker, Hsu said.
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