The shadowing of a Taiwanese research vessel carrying Philippine researchers by Chinese coast guard vessels earlier this year contravened a UN convention, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
At the time, the R/V Legend was in the South China Sea carrying out a research project sponsored by Taiwan and the Philippines under the terms of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said.
The “harassment” by Chinese coast guard vessels not only jeopardized regional security and stability, but also contravened the UN convention, which sets out the rights and obligations of countries to conduct scientific research in the world’s oceans, Ou said.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
The ministry condemns the Chinese coast guard’s shadowing of the Legend in March, she said, without giving details of the coast guard’s actions.
Disputes in the region should be settled peacefully by all parties concerned in accordance with international law and the law of the sea, Ou said.
The ministry issued the statement a day after the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said that on April 13, it had summoned a senior official from China’s embassy in Manila to protest the alleged “harassment” of the Legend, which was conducting research in the “West Philippine Sea.”
Manila uses the “West Philippine Sea” to designate the parts of the South China Sea included in its exclusive economic zone.
On Thursday last week, US-based research organization Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said in a report that separate incidents had been recorded of Chinese law enforcement vessels challenging “marine research and hydrocarbon exploration activities within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.”
In the report, titled Three Rounds of Coercion, the organization said that on March 23, Chinese Coast Guard vessel 5203 departed from Mischief Reef (Meiji Reef, 美濟礁) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and “began shadowing” the Legend at a distance of 2 to 3 nautical miles (3.7km to 5.6km) while the Legend was conducting research in Philippine territory.
On April 6, the same Chinese coast guard boat again tailed the Legend, which was accompanied by a Philippine coast guard patrol vessel, the BRP Capones, the report said.
The Chinese vessel stopped shadowing the other two vessels only after the Capones returned to port in San Fernando and the Legend sailed back to Taiwan three days later, it said.
An article by The Associated Press (AP) in April said the Legend was carrying five Philippine scientists and an unspecific number of Taiwanese researchers on a month-long voyage to map faults and other geological features to help assess earthquake, tsunami and other potential risks in the region.
The mapping project, which concluded on April 13, was partly funded by the Philippine Department of Science and Technology, and was conducted by Taoyuan-based National Central University and the University of the Philippines’ National Institute of Geological Sciences, the AP report said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not