At the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) expressed her willingness to push for “meaningful dialogue” with China on an equal footing. Her remarks were praised by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who said such goodwill might help break the deadlock between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
However, a week later, the Coast Guard Administration irritated Beijing by announcing that it would, on Tsai’s instructions, add the word “Taiwan” above the words “ROC Coast Guard” on the hulls of Taiwanese coast guard vessels to distinguish them from Chinese vessels.
Some experts speculated that this was related to China’s launch early this month of the Haixun 06 (海巡06) vessel, Fujian Province’s first 5,000-tonne maritime patrol rescue ship.
However, what is more interesting is the Chinese vessel’s capabilities. In addition to its ability to supply electrical power to other ships, the Haixun 06 can perform a variety of life-saving tasks on a ship in distress, such as stopping leaks and draining water. The vessel is also equipped with various emergency systems, such as fire suppression.
Take its monitoring system for oil spills for example: Based on calculations and environmental data, such as wave height and sea conditions, the system can monitor the distribution and drift of oil spills on the sea surface.
When dealing with threats on the waters in the Strait and to the marine life there, perhaps the solution lies in cross-strait cooperation on certain issues such as prevention of water pollution, sustainable development of the fishery industry and the conservation of precious marine life.
It would be much more effective and efficient if the two sides worked together. When dealing with accidents, such as ships in distress or oil spills, they could cooperate to save lives and reduce damage.
In the case of massive oil spills, for example, good results could be obtained if the two sides could work together to build a maritime emergency response mechanism.
There are many successful examples of such cross-border cooperation. For example, France, Italy and Monaco have built a cooperation mechanism for whale protection in the Ligurian Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea. Also, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark have teamed up in the Wadden Sea through the 1997 Trilateral Wadden Sea Plan.
Cooperation across borders on ocean conservation can also help improve relationships, as can be seen in the example of Jordan and Israel, which have worked together to protect the coral reefs and tourism resources in the Red Sea Marine Peace Park.
As political leaders on both sides of the Strait expressed goodwill during the Lunar New Year holiday, perhaps they could start by discussing how to build a cooperation mechanism to protect the marine environment, making the ocean — which belongs to all — the biggest winner.
Hua Jian is an associate professor in National Taiwan Ocean University’s Department of Marine Engineering.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS