The third Taiwan-Japan Maritime Affairs Cooperation Dialogue is to be held today in Tokyo, with a focus on emergency rescue cooperation, marine scientific research and fishing.
Taiwan’s delegation is to be headed by Taiwan-Japan Relations Association Secretary-General Chang Shu-ling (張淑玲), with the association’s president serving as a consultant, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Other members of the delegation would include officials from the ministry, the Ocean Affairs Council, the Coast Guard Administration, the Fisheries Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology, it added.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Our side is to engage in negotiations with Japan on issues such as search-and-rescue cooperation at sea, ocean scientific research and fishery issues,” the foreign ministry said.
It is the government’s hope to develop mutually beneficial cooperation with Japan through the platform, and to strengthen communications and negotiations on bilateral maritime affairs to maintain order at sea, it said.
The dialogue was established amid growing tensions between the two sides following the Japan Coast Guard’s seizure in April 2016 of a Taiwanese fishing boat operating about 150 nautical miles (278km) east-southeast of the Okinotori Atoll.
Japan classifies Okinotori as an island and claims a 370km exclusive economic zone around it, but there is no international consensus on whether it is an island or a rock.
The Democratic Progressive Party administration will not take a legal stance on the classification until the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf delivers a ruling, but it urged Japan to respect the rights of Taiwan and other nations to fish and navigate freely.
The administration’s stance is softer than that of the previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, which officially declared Okinotori a rock.
The first bilateral maritime meeting was held in Japan in October 2016 and the second was held in Taipei in December last year, during which little progress was made on the issue of Okinotori, Chang said after its conclusion.
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