Yilan County Councilor Tsai Wen-yi (蔡文益) on Saturday said he would form a flotilla to “protect the Republic of China’s [ROC] sovereignty” over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) if Japan’s Ishigaki City Council renames the islands.
The Diaoyutais — known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan — are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea claimed by Taiwan, Japan and China.
The city council on Monday next week is to deliberate changing the administrative designation of the islands from Tonoshiro to “Tonoshiro Senkaku.”
PHOTO: Reuters/Kyodo
In response, the Yilan County Council on Thursday last week passed a provisional motion recommending changing the name to “Toucheng Township Diaoyutai” (頭城釣魚台), as the county’s Toucheng Township (頭城) has administrative authority over the islands.
Tsai said that if Ishigaki passes its proposal, he would form a flotilla of fishing vessels in Toucheng and Suao (蘇澳) townships on July 7 to “defend” the islands.
If Ishigaki shelves the proposal or if it does not pass, Tsai said he would cancel those plans, and would follow Legislative Speaker You Si-kun’s (游錫堃) position on the islands.
You said that Taiwan and Japan should put aside their differences and jointly develop the islands.
“Protecting the ROC’s sovereignty is the responsibility of everyone regardless of party affiliation or ethnicity,” Tsai said.
Tsai also said they could start a fundraising campaign for the flotilla, which would “preserve each donator’s name throughout history for NT$10,000.”
Issues of whether to land on the islands or surround them, and how many people and ships would be needed for the operation would be decided later, Tsai said.
He said he chose July 7 to commemorate the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident (七 七事變) that led to the eight-year Second Sino-Japanese War.
The Yilan County Government yesterday said that although it understood the central government’s position of working with Japan and avoiding conflict, it would continue to prioritize the interests of the nation’s fishers.
It said it was communicating with the Fisheries Agency and local fishers regarding their concerns over their rights near the islands.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS