Taiwan leader visits South China Sea island
Print Edition
TAIWAN leader Ma Ying-jeou, ignoring criticism from the United States, flew to Taiping Island in the South China Sea yesterday, saying the trip was aimed at promoting peace.
Accompanied by about 30 staff members, he spoke at a monument on the island and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development in the South China Sea.
Meeting personnel on the island ahead of the Chinese New Year, he said that Taiwan would work to end disputes, pursue peace and reciprocity and promote joint development in the disputed waterway.
On Wednesday, the US called Ma’s trip to Taiping “extremely unhelpful,” adding that it would not do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway.
Ma, who steps down in May, said he had told the US about his trip a few days beforehand.
Taiwan has just finished a US$100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Taiping.
Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse. It also has supplies of fresh water.
“All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island,” Ma said. He said Taiping would be transformed into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as becoming ecologically friendly and low-carbon.
His visit follows elections won by the Democratic Progressive Party, which declined a request by Ma to send a representative along.
Roughly 2,000 kilometers south of Taiwan and 46 hectares in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the Nansha archipelago.
Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping.
Islands in the South China Sea were first discovered, named and used by the Chinese in the Western Han Dynasty. They were incorporated into the maritime defense system no later than 1721, in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, with patrols and other management measures.
After the Republic of China was founded in 1912, the government published maps of the South China Sea islands in 1935 and 1947, reaffirming its sovereignty over the islands and their surrounding waters, according to Ma.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters: “The Nansha Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times. The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait all have the responsibility to safeguard the ancestral property of the Chinese nation.”
Responding to the visit earlier, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the mainland-based Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.”
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, he said, and people on both sides have the common obligation to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity and safeguard the Chinese nation’s overall and fundamental interests.
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