President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday lauded the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and the Ministry of National Defense for escorting Taiwanese fishermen to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) on Tuesday, calling the move a declaration of Taiwan’s sovereignty over the islands.
“Under the escort of coast guard vessels, our fishermen sailed close to the Diaoyutais. Taiwanese fishermen declared to the world that the Diaoyutais are part of the territory of the Republic of China [ROC], and have been occupied by Japan for 117 years,” he said at a luncheon with members of the Combined Logistics Command.
To assert the nation’s sovereignty over the islands, 75 Taiwanese vessels sailed near the Diaoyutais early on Tuesday, escorted by 10 CGA ships. When Japanese patrol boats sprayed the Taiwanese fishing boats with water to drive them away, Taiwanese coast guard vessels retaliated with their own water cannons, resulting in a tense standoff.
Photo: CNA
Given the rough sea conditions, the Taiwanese boats started returning to the fishing port of Nanfangao (南方澳) in Yilan County several hours later, with CGA vessels remaining about 7km from the Diaoyutais to see that all fishing boats left the area safely.
Ma yesterday said the coast guard played a crucial role in safeguarding the safety of Taiwanese fishermen and said he had called CGA head Wang Jinn-wang (王進旺) to convey his gratitude for the agency’s assistance.
“We will not put our military on the front line, but they will be well-prepared to take full control of the situation in the Diaoyutais,” he said.
Ma said the island chain has been the fishing grounds of Taiwanese fishermen for decades and the government fully supports fishermen’s move to protect their right to fish in those waters.
In related news, the CGA dismissed a media report that national security authorities had negotiated beforehand with Japan and China, asking Japan not to be too provocative toward the Taiwanese boats and for China not to send ships to the area.
The negotiation was to “ensure that everything followed the script,” the Chinese-language China Times quoted an unnamed senior official as saying.
Lee Mao-jung (李茂榮), deputy director of the CGA’s Maritime Patrol Directorate-General, who led the CGA flotilla that escorted the protest, said it was impossible to simulate the confrontation, which included several dangerous actions such as the firing of water cannons and the release of smoke.
CGA Deputy Minister Cheng Chang-Hsiung (鄭樟雄) said the agency did inform Japanese authorities of the fishermen’s protest in advance and asked them not to interfere or to judge the situation wrongly.
They were told that “we will have countermeasures to any action they take,” Cheng said.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test