The international community needs to increase their navigations through the Taiwan Strait, using clear and concrete actions to demonstrate freedom of navigation and other norms that help maintain the international order, experts said yesterday.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) in an article published on Thursday on the Foreign Affairs Web site called for more actions to be taken by the international community to maintain the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, including freedom of navigation.
About 50 percent of cargo container ships pass through the Taiwan Strait daily. As such, many countries have conducted missions to demonstrate freedom of navigation in the Strait.
Photo: AFP, US Navy, Ismael Martinez
The US Navy Burke-class missile destroyer USS Halsey exercised freedom of navigation rights through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday last week, marking the third time it has passed through the Strait this year.
On Tuesday last week, the German Federal Ministry of Defense announced that it would send two warships to the Indo-Pacific region to uphold freedom of navigation. France enacted legislation last year to protect freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait, the first of its kind in the world.
China has been trying to internalize the Taiwan Strait by dispatching military aircraft to fly near Taiwan.
Kuma Academy founder Ho Cheng-hui (何澄輝) yesterday said that the Taiwan Strait is one of the world’s geopolitical hot spots, adding that actions are necessary to uphold widely accepted international norms.
“Without concrete actions, it might encourage China and other authoritarian regimes to engage in risky behavior,” Ho said. “Increases in actions are necessary to deter authoritarian regimes.”
The Taiwan Strait is an important international trade passage as a significant percentage of the Strait is classified as international waters, Ho said.
“The appearance of military aircraft is to ensure that freedom of navigation is protected, and that regional peace, security and stability can be maintained,” he said, adding that many countries have conducted similar tasks in the Red Sea.
In other developments, Taiwan has since 2021 increased cooperation with the Philippines in coastal patrol affairs by training Philippine Coast Guard officers at Central Police University, the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday.
The administration did not comment further on whether the program has also trained officers to counter increasing harassment from the China Coast Guard.
However, the administration invited Philippine Coast Guard officials to Taiwan to observe the Haian No. 11 drill that was conducted last year.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we