At the end of November last year, Paul Reichler, the US lawyer representing the Philippines in its South China Sea dispute with China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, set out to prove that the Republic of China (ROC)-administered Itu Aba Island (太平島, Taiping Island) is, for a number of reasons, not actually an island.
Reichler cited President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) position that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) do not possess an exclusive economic zone. Taiping Island is one-tenth the size of the Diaoyutais.
Second, Reichler said that Taiwanese legal academics have shown that there is no civilian population living on Taiping Island. A professor from National Taiwan University has also proven that the island does not contain a naturally occurring supply of fresh water.
Third, aside from there being no civilians on the island, there is also no Aboriginal population — the only people on the island are members of the ROC’s armed forces which operate an administrative office on behalf of the Coast Guard Administration.
Fourth, there is no naturally occurring arable land suitable for farming on the island; instead there is a mixture of cultivated soil and other types of ground cover. For these reasons, Reichler says Taiping Island is in fact a rocky outcrop.
The Philippine government has said China’s “nine-dash line” violates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and feels the question of whether or not the PCA holds jurisdiction on the matter should be left undecided until practical issues are reviewed. However, the PCA already has the jurisdiction to pass a ruling on the reefs that China is occupying, such as Subi Reef (Jhubi Reef, 渚碧礁) and Mischief Reef (Meiji Reef, 美濟礁), as well as having the authority to rule on whether Johnson South Reef (Chigua Reef, 赤瓜礁), Cuateron Reef (Huayang Reef, 華陽礁) and Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑礁) possess an exclusive economic zone or a continental shelf.
Taiping Island is the largest naturally occurring reef within the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and it has a surface area comparable to Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島), administered by the Philippines. There is a danger that the arbitration case the Philippine government has brought against China could turn into a judgement from the PCA that Taiping Island is not an island. The impact of such a ruling would mean that no reef within the Spratly Islands can enjoy a 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zone.
Geological experts and lawyers speaking on behalf of the PCA have said that according to the wording of Clause 121, Article 1 of UNCLOS, Taiping Island can be considered an island because: “An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide.”
However, Article 3 of the same clause states that: “Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already clarified the government’s position that Taiping Island is “absolutely not a reef” and is maintaining the line that “this case is completely unrelated to the Republic of China, therefore the ROC government will not recognize or accept any ruling made [by the PCA] in this case.”
True gold fears no fire; the government should therefore open Taiping Island to inspection by PCA officials or lawyers related to this case. This is the only surefire way to prove that Taiping Island is in fact an island and not a reef.
Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
Translated by Edward Jones
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS