Taiwan summoned Japan’s representative yesterday to protest its seizure of a Taiwanese fishing boat in an area where Tokyo claims exclusive rights, while Taipei is sending two vessels — one from the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and the other from the Council of Agriculture — to the waters around the disputed atoll to defend the rights of the nation’s fishermen.
The 50-tonne Tung Sheng Chi 16 fishing vessel was chased for hours by a Japanese vessel and seized earlier this week, about 150 nautical miles (277.8km) from Okinotori atoll, which is administered by Japan.
The seizure of the fishing boat prompted protest from Taipei, which said Japan had no authority over the area and demanded the release of the ship and 10 crew.
Photo: CNA
They were later freed, but tensions remained.
The release came only after the ship’s owner paid a “deposit” of ￥6 million (US$54,000) demanded by Japanese authorities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) expressed the nation’s displeasure to Japanese Representative to Taiwan Mikio Numata.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of the Coast Guard
“We told them that we have never recognized the exclusive economic zone [EEZ] around Okinotorishima and they had no right to seize the fishing boat,” Lin told reporters.
Okinotori is an uninhabited atoll in the Philippine Sea that is mostly submerged at low tide.
The EEZ claim has also been rejected by China and South Korea, although neither country has made its own claim.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
As a show of force, the CGA said that Taiwan would tomorrow dispatch two patrol ships to the area considered high seas by Taiwan near the Japanese-controlled atoll in the western Pacific to protect Taiwanese fishermen operating in the area.
The Legislative Yuan yesterday issued a statement, endorsed by all party caucuses, condemning Japan’s confiscation of the boat and Tokyo’s demand for a security deposit.
Announced by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), the statement read: “We are here to express our strong denunciation and protest against the Japan Coast Guard’s seizure of Taiwanese fishing boat Tung Sheng Chi No. 16, handcuffing our fishermen, stripping them for examination and usurping NT$1.7 million [US$52,662] as a security deposit in the high seas, which violated human rights, fishing rights and rights to sail in international waters and run afoul of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that guarantees the freedom of the high seas.”
According to Article 121 of the convention, an island is a “naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide,” but the Okinotori atoll, which is only 9m2, is a “rock which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of its own” and therefore does not have an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, the statement said.
The legislature said it is lodging “serious condemnation and protest” against Tokyo’s alleged breach of the international convention, “arbitrary expansion of its EEZ” and “seizure of our boat,” which are “bullying acts” that have damaged the long-term friendship of the two nations.
Separately, Premier Simon Chang (張善政) asked the Japanese government not to view Taiwan as an “easy target,” saying that South Korean fishing boats were not confiscated in similar situations.
“We will definitely not accept being treated as an easy target,” the premier said. “Taiwanese are friendly toward Japan and Japan should not make our people feel that we are ‘kissing cold butt with a hot face.’”
Additional reporting by Alison Hsiao and CNA
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS