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Updated Friday, June 13, 2008 0:00 am TWN, The China Post news staff

Taipei reaffirms sovereignty over Tiaoyutai Islands

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Tiaoyutai Islands for the first time in at least ten years yesterday, two full days after a 270-ton sports fishing boat sank in a collision with a Japanese maritime defense frigate over their waters.

President Ma Ying-jeou, once a Tiaoyutai warrior, had a statement issued by his spokesman Wang Yu-chi reaffirming the eight islets, some 120 miles northeast of Keelung, are part of the territory of the Republic of China.

No official statement on the Tiaoyutais has been made over the past ten years, and it seems that Taipei has tacitly given up sovereignty over the small archipelago, which the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands.

China, along with Taiwan and Japan, claims sovereignty over the islets under whose waters lie vast natural gas and oil reserves waiting to be tapped.

“We have never changed our determination to insist on protecting our sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais,” the Office of the President said in the statement. “Nor will we change.”

The islets are designated as Daxi li (ward) of Touzheng Township in the county of Yilan, the statement declared.

“This stand is fully understood by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the statement went on, adding: “It (the foreign ministry) will comply.”

On the other hand, the statement said, “We will lodge a strong protest with the Japanese government for its patrol vessel hitting and sinking our fishing boat and detaining its skipper.”

“We also demand Japan release the skipper at once and pay compensation,” the Office of the President said. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is negotiating with the Japanese side on the basis of the above-mentioned principle,” it added.

Moreover, the statement said, “We also demand that the National Coast Guard Administration strengthen its organization and equipment at once to enhance its function of safeguarding our sovereignty and fishing rights.”

As an aside, Wang Yu-chi said in releasing the statement there never is a change in President Ma’s strong determination to safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais, which is spelled Diaoyutais in pinyin. China uses that name.

“He was a hot-blooded youth,” Wang said of President Ma when he spearheaded the campaign to protect the Tiaoyutais in the early 1970s.

At that time, Ma said he would risk going to war with Japan to safeguard the eight islets.

“President Ma is a hot-blooded middle-ager now,” Wang said.

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	Chou Hsi-wei, magistrate of Taipei, protests in front of the Taipei office of the Interchange Association, Japan’s de facto embassy. Chou demanded yesterday that Japan release the skipper of the Lien Ho, a 270-ton fishing boat which sank in a collision with a Japanese patrol vessel off the Tiaoyutai Islands on Tuesday.(CNA) More Photos (2)


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