Taiwan should face the thorny issue of its “national status” in international lawsuits, an academic said in Taipei yesterday, adding that the nation could “seriously entertain the possibility of partly accepting an arbitral tribunal’s ruling on the South China Sea.”
In a case brought by the Philippines against China, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Nehterlands, said in a ruling on July 12 that all high-tide features in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), including Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), are legally “rocks” rather than islands and therefore are not entitled to 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zones.
At a seminar discussing the ruling and its impact on Taiwan, Raymond Chen-en Sung (宋承恩), a researcher affiliated with National Chengchi University’s Research Center for International Legal Studies, said that Taiwan should no longer avoid the issue of its national status, as “it would continue to haunt us if more maritime disputes are brought up, with Vietnam being a possible next claimant” that would bring its dispute with China to the tribunal.
Sung said the tribunal “actually reserved room for Taiwan to be the third party” in the arbitration, but the way the previous administration tried to justify its sovereignty over Itu Aba had entirely been in sync with China’s so-called historical claims.
“The tribunal did not outright state that [Taiwan] is [no different from] China,” he said, adding that a judge during oral arguments raised the question of whether the People’s Republic of China could “issue acts which are of legal relevance in international law for Taiwan, the Republic of China.”
The Philippines’ attorneys claimed during oral arguments that “any acts undertaken — or statements made — by representatives or organs of the Republic of China after October 1949, which had established itself in Taiwan, cannot, as a matter of law, be attributable to China.”
Sung said the Philippines has, with the statement, skillfully recognized that there are two different entities across the Taiwan Strait.
The academic then questioned former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inaction when China made claims about Taiping Island, contesting the tribunal’s jurisdiction on the matter in late 2014.
“When Beijing protested the Philippines’ leaving out Taiping Island, thereby violating China’s claim to the island emanating from the ‘one China’ principle, Ma did not protest,” Jung said.
Nor did the former administration voice any protests against the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ claims that China has unquestionable sovereignty over Itu Aba Island, Sung added.
He asked the government to partly accept the international court’s ruling by acknowledging that the South China Sea “belongs to everyone,” but at the same time continue to claim sovereignty over Taiping Island.
“We could ask whether other nations, including the US and Japan that controls small islets, would agree to accept this year’s arbitration award as the criterion for determining an island’s status,” Sung added.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS