Ma again invites Philippine officials to visit Taiping Island
ROC Central News Agency
2016/04/07 17:49:45
Taipei, April 7 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Thursday repeated his invitation to the Philippines to send representatives or lawyers to visit Taiwan-held Taiping Island in the disputed South China Sea.
During a meeting with former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, Ma said a Philippine lawyer made a totally untrue argument in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last November that Taiping was a rock, not an island.
Ma said that since December last year, the Taiwan government has taken several experts and journalists to Taiping to show them the high-quality fresh water source there.
He said Taiping Island can produce 65 tons of fresh water per day, 3 tons of which can be consumed without treatment.
Fruits and vegetables are cultivated on the island, and there are also livestock, a hospital, post office, temple and forest there, the president said. Taiping fully meets the description of an island as defined in Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the president said.
He said that during a visit to Taiping on Jan. 28, he proposed a road map for his South China Sea peace initiative, in which he called for cooperation, sharing and pragmatism among the claimants in the disputed South China Sea and advocated no confrontation, monopolizing or intransigence.
In the long term, the Taiwan government hopes to transform the South China Sea into an area of peace and cooperation, with Taiping in the role of as "an island of peace and for rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island," Ma said.
(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Y.F. Low)
ENDITEM/pc
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