While news of a Taiwanese fishing boat being chased by Japanese patrol vessels near the disputed Diaoyutai islands (釣魚台) made headlines recently, Taiwan finds itself playing the opposite role with regard to the Dongsha Islands (東沙島) in the South China Sea.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) is tasked with protecting the country’s claims on the Dongsha Islands, located 450km southwest of Kaohsiung. Also known as the Pratas Islands, Taiwan has claimed sovereignty over the islands and occupied them since 1946.
The island group includes Dongsha Island, which is 2.8km long and 865m wide, the Dongsha Atoll and two underwater banks. The atoll is round in shape with a diameter of 25km.
While the Diaoyutais and the Dongsha Islands are both disputed territories, issues associated with the two are different, said Yu Sy-tue (虞思祖), a spokesman for Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, during a visit to the Dongsha Islands on Thursday.
The Diaoyutais are 100 nautical miles (185km) off Taiwan’s northeast tip in the East China Sea and are under Japanese control, while control over islands in the South China Sea is more complicated.
Taiwan controls Dongsha Island, the largest island in the entire South China Sea, and Taiping Island (太平島), the largest island in the Spratlys.
The Dongsha Islands, the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands and the Macclesfield Bank have been claimed by as many as six countries: Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia.
In 2008, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) visited the Spratlys to inaugurate an airstrip, sparking protest from the Philippines and Vietnam.
Taiwan, however, has been trying to tone down its military presence and reduce tensions by promoting peaceful development and ocean conservation in the region — both key elements in the “Spratlys initiative” Chen proposed in 2008.
On the Dongsha Islands, the Coast Guard replaced the Marine Corps in 2000, establishing a Dongsha Command Post under its Southern Coast Patrol Office. Dongsha Island is closed to the public except for academic research groups. The Dongsha Atoll National Park was established in 2007 as one of Taiwan’s eight national parks.
Today, the Dongsha Command Post and park officials say their core missions are rescues and biodiversity conservation, although the Coast Guard is also in charge of keeping fishermen from China, Vietnam and Hong Kong from entering territorial waters around the islands.
There are 100 to 200 people stationed on the island, including staff of the Coast Guard and the national park service, said Sung Tse-yang, deputy commander of the Dongsha Command Post. He declined to give an exact number.
Coral reef restoration is the most important task for the national park, and researchers have been working to restore coral inside and outside the atoll since the destruction caused by El Nino in 1998, the administration said.
More attention has been focused on the South China Sea since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted in late July that the US “has a national interest” in the region, said Baushuan Ger (葛葆宣), deputy secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
While the Taiwan-controlled Dongsha Islands and the China-controlled Paracel Islands are relatively stable, the Spratlys are still the most controversial in the South China Sea, as Vietnam currently occupies 25 islands, Taiwan controls two and China, Malaysia and the Philippines have eight or nine each.
Ger said that he does not expect major conflict in the region in the near future and that Taiwan hopes all claimants will set aside disputes and collaborate on management and conservation.
“Our appeals remain the same,” he said. “We claim full sovereignty over the South China Sea and hope to resolve the issue through peaceful dialogue. The Taiwan government maintains channels for dialogues with all parties involved in the issue — although they’re mostly unofficial.”
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