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.
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