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LoginTaiwan lawmaker suggests sending warship to disputed Diaoyu
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Taipei - A Taiwan lawmaker on Friday asked the navy to send a warship to the disputed Diaoyu Islands next week to assert Taiwan's territorial claim over the islets.
Lin Yu-fang, from the ruling KMT party, asked the Taiwan navy to send a Kidd-class destroyer to carry lawmakers on an inspection trip to the Diaoyu Islands on June 18.
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming, on the other hand, urged Taiwan and China to join hands in affirming their joint claim over the Daioyu Islands.
Lin made the request after a Taiwanese boat was chased by a Japanese coast guard vessel Tuesday when it sailed into waters 10 kilometres south of Diaoyu, called Senkaku islands by the Japanese.
The Taiwan vessel carrying 3 crew and 13 fishermen sank as a result of the collision with the Japanese ship.
Japanese coast guard rescued the 16 Taiwanese, handing 13 of them to a Taiwan coast guard ship Tuesday, releasing two Thursday but detained Captain Ho Hung-yi for questioning until Friday. He will fly back to Taiwan Friday evening.
The collision, the latest incidence of Japan's harassing Taiwan fishing boats near the Diaoyu Islands, triggered anti-Japan protests outside Japan's representative office in Taipei and lawmakers' blasting President Ma Ying-jeou for being too soft in the sovereignty dispute over the Daioyu Islands.
China ceded the Diaoyu Islands, 193 kilometres north of Taiwan, to Japan along with Taiwan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
Japan returned Taiwan to China in 1945 but continued to hold the Diaoyu Islands, and felt its claim to the Diaoyu was reinforced when the United States included them in the agreement to return Okinawa island to Tokyo on May 12, 1972.
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Taiwan sends vessels into disputed waters
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49b38a84-3b8e-11dd-9cb2-0000779fd2ac.html
By Kathrin Hille in Taipei
Published: June 16 2008 11:54 | Last updated: June 16 2008 11:54
Taiwan took the unprecedented step on Monday of sending coast guard vessels into waters claimed by Japan, highlighting the much tougher stance the island’s new government is taking on the neighbour it had so far viewed as its closest unofficial ally in Asia.
Ten patrol boats accompanied a fishing vessel to just one sea mile off the Diaoyutais, or Senkakus, islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by Taiwan and China, according to the coast guard in the port of Shenao, to which the group safely returned on Monday.
The fishing vessel had been rented by a group of men who said they wanted to assert the sovereignty of the Republic of China – the state which founded in China in 1912 and which moved to Taiwan in 1949 – over the islands.
The trip marked the latest escalation in a bilateral spat over a collision between a Japanese coast guard vessel and a Taiwanese fishing boat on June 10. The Taiwanese boat sank after the collision and its captain claims that the Japanese ship rammed him intentionally.
Koh Se-kai, Taiwan’s representative to Japan appointed under the previous government, resigned on Monday after being accused by ruling party lawmakers of having taken Japan’s side in the incident.
In recent years, Taiwan dealt with tussles between its fishermen and the Japanese coast guard in a low-key manner because it sought closer ties with Japan in the face of China’s desire to absorb Taiwan.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years until 1945, and many Taiwanese have more friendly feelings towards Japan than towards China.
In the past, anger over Japan’s handling of the Diaoyutai issue was limited to fishermen and those residents of Taiwan whose families had come as refugees from China in 1949 and who are more likely to see themselves as Chinese.
But the new government that took office in Taiwan last month has taken a friendlier approach towards China than its predecessor.
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