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Updated Monday, October 19, 2009 5:19 pm TWN, By Elizabeth Hsu, CNA

Taiwan never offered coast oceanographic data to Beijing: officials

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Taiwan government has denied an accusation by an opposition lawmaker that it presented Beijing with coastal oceanographic data on Taiwan and thereby reduced the island's status to a province of China.

Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi on Monday said the accusation by Legislator Chai Trong-Rong of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was unfounded.

Wang said it is regrettable that a politician would start rumors to mislead the public and dent the morale of government officials.

Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Join-sane said in response to media questions on the issue that Taiwan did not pass on any coastal oceanographic data to Beijing. In Taiwan, there are certain restrictions that apply to research findings, he added.

The media questions revolved around a local newspaper report earlier in the day on Chai's accusation that National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Su Chi had instructed an oceanic monitoring team under the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to hand over data on Taiwan's seabed and reefs to its Chinese counterpart.

Chai claimed that over the past five years, monitoring vessels from China have been spotted frequently in waters around Taiwan taking measurements and collecting other data that they said would be used as reference in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Taiwan government offered China data on Taiwan's seabed and reefs, including classified information, in exchange for Beijing's support for Taiwan's bid to join international bodies, Chai was quoted as saying in the report.

Given that the lawmaker made the accusation in the media rather than in the Legislative Yuan, NSC officials said, the council would probably bring a lawsuit against him.

Asked what the charges would be, the officials said they were "still discussing that."

In response to Chai's claims, MOI Vice Minister Chien Tai-Lang said he never received any directive to offer that type of information to China, and that there are no such instructions in place, according to the news report.

The pro-independent DPP has been critical of the cross-Taiwan Strait policies of President Ma Ying-jeou's administration.

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October 20, 2009 pactradr@

China claims ownership of Taiwan, and if that were true, then they would already know the details of Taiwan and its shore line. China has now exposed themselves as trying to steal from their independent neighbors. By this act, China openly says that China is not honest. Now the World knows by China’s own word.


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