The government must boost capacity for ships to patrol islands under its control in the South China Sea and join with friendly nations to file a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in response to China’s oil rig activity near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島), a lawmaker and security experts said on Thursday.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said that reports of Chinese oil rigs near Pratas Island show that Beijing has expanded construction efforts in the South China Sea.
Previous activity has resulted in disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines, and now Beijing has taken up “gray zone” tactics to encroach into Taiwanese-controlled islands, Chiu said, citing a report published this week by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation that said Chinese oil rigs have been sighted deep inside the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Pratas Island.
Photo: Reuters
“Starting in July, CNOOC [China National Offshore Oil Corp] maneuvered the semi-submersible rig Nanhaierhao deep into Taiwan’s claimed EEZ. It is now only around 30 miles [48.3km] from Pratas’ restricted waters, although CNOOC rigs previously have come as close as 770 yards [704m],” the think tank’s report said.
China is using “strategic ambiguity within a focused warfare strategy” to “normalize” such encroachments and force other countries to accept new norms, “but Taiwan’s government absolutely cannot allow it to go on,” Chiu said.
“We should work with nations friendly to Taiwan to jointly file a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice to protest China’s intrusion and to spotlight the case on the world stage,” he said.
“The government also must boost the capacity of naval ships to patrol and protect maritime resources, and to oppose gray zone tactics,” he said.
“The opposition has slashed budgets, eroding the effectiveness of our naval forces,” he said, adding that lawmakers should work together to fight China’s encroachments into Taiwan’s maritime territory.
The Presidential Office said in a statement that “the Chinese oil rigs have violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and other conventions, seriously undermining security and international order, and posing a risk to regional stability.”
“As a member of the regional bloc, China must explain its action to fellow country members, and must immediately terminate drilling activities and other illegal activity within Taiwan’s and other countries’ EEZs,” it said.
Separately, Taiwan National Security Institute deputy secretary-general Ho Cheng-hui (何澄輝) in an interview called on Taiwan to work with like-minded nations to protest China’s creation of artificial islands, which it could turn into military installations.
Since 2013, when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office, China has been turning reefs into islands, Ho said.
“It has also dredged to supply material to expand reefs and islands, and built airstrips and other military installations,” he said.
“Beijing has done these things in the South China Sea, the East Sea [the Sea of Japan] and the Yellow Sea, to expand reefs and atolls into islands for military sites,” he said.
“China has a large navy fleet, but insufficient long-distance capacity and they lack experience in maritime operations, so they rely on islands for logistics and storage, and to extend Chinese influence as Beijing attempts to turn the seas into ‘internal lakes’ under its control,” Ho said.
“The oil rigs near Pratas Island present a difficult challenge, as Taiwan and China have a special political relationship, so it is not easy for Taipei to gain support among the international community over its sovereignty claims,” he said.
“Under international conventions, Taiwan can stress that China’s actions endanger the status quo and escalate risks to regional stability,” Ho said. “China has also infringed upon the maritime territory claimed by the Philippines, so the two nations should file a joint protest.”
“If the protest is loud enough, China could claim it was only oil and gas exploration activity, but keep the craft in place,” he added.
“Gray zone tactics can be shifted between ‘black’ and ‘white’ to pressure and threaten smaller countries, so Taiwan cannot resist alone,” he said. “It must cooperate with other friendly nations. Only together can China’s illegal expansion be stopped.”
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