Taiwanese president’s trip to South China Sea island unhelpful, US says
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s planned trip to the Taiwanese-held island of Taiping, or Itu Aba, in the disputed South China Sea is “extremely unhelpful” and won’t do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway, a US official said on Wednesday.
Ma’s office earlier announced that the president, who steps down in May, would fly to Taiping on Thursday to offer Lunar New Year wishes to residents on the island, mainly Taiwanese coastguard personnel and environmental scholars.
But Ma’s one-day visit to Taiping comes amid growing international concern over rising tensions in the waterway and quickly drew the ire of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.
“We are disappointed that President Ma Ying-jeou plans to travel to Taiping Island,” AIT spokeswoman Sonia Urbom said.
“Such an action is extremely unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea.”
Such an action is extremely unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea
The United States wanted Taiwan and all claimants to lower tensions, rather than taking actions that could raise them, Urbom added.
On a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington and Beijing needed to find a way to ease tensions in the South China Sea, through which US$5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.
Both Taipei and Beijing claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims.
Taiping lies in the Spratly archipelago, where Beijing’s rapid construction of seven artificial islands has drawn alarm across parts of Asia and been heavily criticised by Washington.
Taiwan has just finished a US$100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Taiping, which has its own airstrip, a hospital and fresh water.
Ma’s visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ma’s office said it had asked DPP leader Tsai Ing-wen to send a representative, but the party said it had no plans to do so.
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Beijing has sought to work with Taipei in asserting Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea, and some mainland analysts believe Ma’s efforts to enhance Taipei’s presence there – such as approving the construction of a wharf and lighthouse on Taiping Island – could work in favour of Beijing’s claims.
Beijing’s nine-dash line, which demarks its claims to the sea, was originally drawn up by the Kuomintang government in the 1940s, before it fled the mainland for Taiwan at the end of the civil war.
Ma had been expected to visit the island in December to inaugurate the wharf and lighthouse, but amid pressure from the US, Taiwan’s interior minister went instead.
Li Jinming, a South China Sea expert with Xiamen University, said Ma’s presence on Taiping Island would have little impact on the South China Sea crisis. A bigger concern for Beijing, Li said, was that Taiwan’s incoming government, to be led by the Democratic Progressive Party, would be less vocal and assertive in defending Taiwan’s interests in the sea.
“Taiping is the only island in the South China Sea that has fresh water, it bears very important strategic values for China’s sovereignty claims,” Li said.
“So if the DPP gives up [defending the sovereignty], that would have implications on China’s efforts to defend its claims.”
Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected the Philippines and Vietnam to lodge a strong protest, seeing the visit as a violation of their claimed sovereignty over Itu Aba.
“But I do think it is unlikely they would stage a similar visit involving a senior political figure going to one of their own occupied islands ... that would risk inflaming relations with [mainland] China and neither want to go that far,” Storey said.
READ MORE: Is the US gearing up for a direct challenge to Beijing’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea?
Asked to comment on Ma’s planned visit, the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office reiterated that both sides across the Taiwan Strait had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the waterway.
“Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as safeguarding the overall interests of the Chinese nation is the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots across the straits,” spokesman Ma Xiaoguang said.
Speaking after meeting Kerry, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China had the right to protect its territorial sovereignty and that Beijing and Washington should manage the issue in a constructive way.
The claims of both the mainland and Taiwan are based on maps from the late 1940s belonging to the Nationalists, when they ruled all of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communists.
Beijing deems Taiwan a wayward province to be retaken by force if necessary.
But it has appeared unfazed by Taiwan’s upgrading work on Itu Aba. Military strategists say that is because Itu Aba could fall into the mainland’s hands should it ever take over Taiwan.
Dustin Wang, a long-time Taiwanese scholar on the South China Sea who has visited Taiping, said one of Ma’s goals was to highlight the island’s civilian uses.
“Ma will demonstrate that facilities on the island, like the hospital, provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” he said.
Taiping was now the fourth largest island in the Spratlys after China’s land reclamation work on Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef, Taiwan’s coastguard said in October.
The island supports around 180 people, about 150 of them coastguard personnel who have had oversight of the 46-hectare island since 2000.
Additional reporting by Kristine Kwok
