Members of a key US think tank last month visited the Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) to discuss issues related to the South China Sea, council officials said yesterday.
The council, which was established on April 28 last year, held a news conference at its headquarters in Kaohsiung to explain its achievements over the past year.
Since taking office in February, council Minister Lee Chung-wei (李仲威) has met with representatives from the Netherlands Trade and Investment Office, British Office Taipei, the American Institute in Taiwan, the French Office in Taipei and the New Zealand Commerce and Industry Office, it said.
Members of the US Center for Strategic and International Studies last month visited the council and exchanged opinions over issues related to the South China Sea, Department of International Development Director Joseph Hsieh (謝亞杰) said.
The council has also invited representatives from the EU, the US, Japan and South Korea as well as Taipei’s diplomatic allies to the Dongsha Atoll for the first International Dongsha Conference, he said.
The conference, to be held from Thursday to Friday next week, is to feature speeches and panel discussions about maritime law, security and policy, as well ecology, oceanography, and marine industries and culture.
The council cannot reveal the names of the foreign invitees, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still confirming whether they will attend, he said.
Council Deputy Minister Chuang Ching-ta (莊慶達) yesterday in Taipei met with Atsushi Sunami, president of the Ocean Policy Research Institute of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, to discuss cooperation with Japan in marine affairs, Hsieh said.
The foundation is influential in Japan and might help Taiwan attend the Our Ocean Conference launched by former US secretary of state John Kerry in 2014, he said.
Next year’s conference is to be held in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific — so the council trying to have the nation attend in an official capacity, instead of non-official representation as was the case in 2017 and last year, Hsieh said.
The council is also planning to build a national ocean database by combining data collected by government agencies and universities, the council’s National Academy of Marine Research associate researcher Lin Shih-chang (林世昌) said.
As some oceanographers have objected to handing over their data to the council, it continues to negotiate with them regarding the database’s management, Lin said.
Due to the sensitivity of certain maritime data, the academy would boost information security measures for the database, he added.
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