Opposition parties in Taiwan have accused the government of failing to defend the island’s long-standing claims in the South China Sea, following its muted response to Philippine attempts to delimit a disputed shoal.
“The government speaks loudly when confronting mainland China, but falls silent when Japan or the Philippines challenges Taiwan’s claims,” Kuomintang culture and communications committee director Chen I-hsin said on Sunday.
Chen was referring to the Philippines’ move to assert territorial sea baselines claims around Scarborough Shoal, a group of tiny, low-lying rocky islets off the east coast of Luzon.
The shoal is called Huangyan Island in mainland China, Minzhu Reef in Taiwan and Panatag Shoal in the Philippines – and claimed by all.
Last week, Manila filed its official nautical chart for Scarborough Shoal with the United Nations.
In the chart, the Philippines defines its claims to the shoal’s “territorial sea baseline”, along with the outer limits of its 12-nautical-mile (22km) territorial sea and 24-nautical-mile contiguous zone.
Responding to the issue on Monday, the Taiwanese foreign ministry did not mention the chart directly, simply saying that its claims over South China Sea islands and adjacent waters remained unchanged.
It restated that Taiwan opposed “any attempt to change the status quo through force, coercion or unilateral action, as well as excessive maritime claims that could heighten regional tensions”, and called for disputes to be resolved peacefully under international law.
The KMT, Taiwan’s main opposition party, said the ministry’s response amounted to little more than a statement that Taiwan should not be excluded from South China Sea consultations.
Chen accused the government of applying a double standard in defending Taiwan’s rights, describing its approach as one of “three don’ts” – “not daring to name the Philippines, not daring to lodge a protest and not daring to take action”.
He called on the administration of Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te to lodge a formal protest with Manila and convene a high-level meeting to discuss the issue.
Chen Ching-lung, legislative caucus whip of the smaller opposition Taiwan People’s Party, also urged the ministry to adopt a firmer response.
However, ruling Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus chief executive Chuang Jui-hsiung defended the government’s approach, saying “all parties should resolve disputes peacefully through dialogue and in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international law”.
Manila’s submission to the UN came less than a month after the 10th anniversary of the 2016 South China Sea arbitral ruling, a decision rejected by Taipei.
The ruling classified Taiwan-administered Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, as a rock rather than an island, depriving it of a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
At the time, the DPP administration of Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, said the ruling was “absolutely unacceptable” and had no legal binding force on Taipei.
On the 10th anniversary, Taiwan’s foreign ministry reaffirmed the island’s South China Sea claims and repeated its four long-standing policy principles, but stopped short of repeating the 2016 declaration.
Some analysts said the Lai administration’s more measured language reflected a broader shift in its handling of South China Sea disputes.
Li Ci-ze, an associate professor of public affairs at National Changhua University of Education, said that supporting peaceful dispute resolution under international law did not prevent Taiwan from rejecting parts of the arbitration ruling that harmed its interests.
“The government should publicly reaffirm that the ruling has no legal binding force on the Republic of China and continue challenging the tribunal’s classification of Taiping Island as a rock,” he said, adding that prolonged silence could be interpreted as acquiescence.
Taipei-based diplomacy scholar James Yifan Chen said the government’s response to both the arbitration anniversary and the Scarborough Shoal dispute reflected Taiwan’s long-standing difficulty in taking part in multilateral South China Sea mechanisms.
He argued that Taipei had “increasingly relied on broad references to international law and statements by like-minded countries while avoiding direct assertions of its own claims, partly out of concern over Washington’s position”.
Lin Ying-yu, an associate professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, said Taiwan should place greater emphasis on both “legal warfare” and “public opinion warfare” by communicating its South China Sea claims more actively to the international community.
He also called for more visible activity on Taiping Island, including military exercises and international outreach, to reinforce Taiwan’s effective administration of the feature.
Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of China and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve reunification, has meanwhile stepped up its own response to developments in the South China Sea.
Most countries – including the United States, Taiwan’s main international backer – do not recognise the self-ruled island as an independent state. However, Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force.
Marking the arbitration ruling’s anniversary on July 12, Beijing dismissed it as “a piece of waste paper with no binding force”, repeating that it neither accepted nor recognised the decision.
It later accused Manila of “flagrantly infringing” Chinese sovereignty by submitting a claim to the United Nations for an extended continental shelf in another part of the South China Sea, urged the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to reject the filing, and followed up on Saturday with joint naval and air exercises around Scarborough Shoal involving H-6K bombers carrying YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
