Taiwan to "skirt" Tiaoyutai issue with Japan, says COA

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 27, 2006. It reports that according to the Council of Agriculture, Taiwan will avoid the sensitive Tiaoyutai issue in order to hold fishery talks with Japan in the future.

The Tiaoyutai islands are known as the Senkakus in Japan. They are an uninhabited island group in the East China Sea, where fishery as well as crude oil resources are reportedly abundant. Throughout the years, Taiwan, Japan and China have all claimed to own the islands as well as the fishing area around them.

Indeed, the waters near the Tiaoyutai islands are considered by Taiwanese fishermen as their traditional fishing grounds. However, Japan demarcated the area as part of its 200-nautical mile economic zone in 1996 and has since prevented Taiwanese fishing boats from entering the area. Taiwanese fishing boats near the area are often detained and fined by Japanese authorities.

In order to avoid further disputes, The Ministry of the Interior has drawn a provisional demarcation line or jurisdiction line along the centreline of the Taiwan's and Japan's overlapping economic zones since 2003. If Taiwanese fishing boats operate to the west of the demarcation line, then they will not be impounded by Japanese patrol ships.

According to the Council of Agriculture's Fisheries Administration, the government has allocated a budget to subsidize 230 Taiwanese fishing boats so that an advanced virtual memory system can be installed on the vessels. The system is able to let fishermen know whether they have crossed to the east of the demarcation line when operating in the overlapping fishing grounds.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a planned 16th round of Taiwan-Japan fishery talks was recently postponed due to significant differences between the two nations on issues that included overlapping territorial waters and the Tiaoyutain issue. Previously, Taiwan and Japan have held 15 rounds of fishery talks and two rounds of preparatory meetings since 1996.