A presidential aide yesterday reiterated that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) and their surrounding waters are an inherent part of the territory of the Republic of China and that territorial disputes should be solved peacefully.
“Taiwan has been very clear: The Diaoyutais are an inherent part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of China,” Presidential Office Secretary-General Timothy Yang (楊進添) said at the opening of the Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Security Dialogue forum in Taipei.
Taiwan has consistently stated that the Diaoyutais issue should be addressed based on the principles of “safeguarding sovereignty, shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint exploration and development,” he said.
Taiwan, Japan and China claim sovereignty over the Diaoyutais, known as the Senkakus in Japan.
In a follow-up panel session on the issue, Akihisa Nagashima, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives, disagreed, saying that the Senkakus are an inherent part of Japan based on historical facts and international law.
However, he added that Japan and Taiwan “share vital security interests” and common values such as democracy, and condemned China’s “unilateral” actions in the South China Sea and East China Sea, which he said have threatened regional stability.
“We have to restrain China’s behavior,” he said, adding that all parties in the region should “seek to solve problems by rule of law, not by control with forceful measures.”
Tensions around the Diaoyutai Islands have risen since the Japanese government purchased three of the island chain’s islets from private owners last year.
Since then, Chinese ships have been sailing into the disputed area, with Japan and China accusing each other of invading what they both see as their sovereign territory.
Former US representative Dan Burton commended the Taiwanese government for trying to resolve the fishing rights issue between Taiwan and Japan “in a very responsible way.”
“One of the things we really need to do in this world is, before we get into any real confrontation, is to sit down, talk and try to work out our differences,” he said.
Taiwan and Japan signed a fisheries agreement in April to resolve long-running disputes on fishing rights in their overlapping waters in the East China Sea.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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