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Ex-president: tribunal ruling violates common sense

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/12 23:14:21

Taipei, July 12 (CNA) Former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who had made ceaseless efforts to highlight Taiwan's sovereignty over Taiping Island, said Tuesday he was shocked and infuriated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration's "absurd and unfair" ruling on the island's status as a rock.

In a Facebook post, Ma said numerous government officials and domestic and foreign scholars and journalists have visited the South China Sea island between December last year and May this year, witnessing an island that has fresh water, rich agricultural produce and full functions to support human habitation.

As of the end of April, 2016, he added, international media had carried 430 articles fully reporting the fact that Taiping Island is an bona fide island that meets the definition of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Therefore, Taiping Island is definitely not a rock, a fact that has become a consensus of an absolute majority of the people around the world, he said.

In a case brought by the Philippines against China in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the international tribunal however ruled earlier in the day that the Spratly Islands (including Itu Aba, Thitu, West York Island, Spratly Island, North-East Cay, South-West Cay) in the South China Sea are legally "rocks" that do not generate an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. Itu Aba is Taiping Island.

Ma pointed out that over the past 70 years, under the Republic of China jurisdiction, Taiping Island has offered humanitarian assistance to ships sailing through the area, winning wide acclaim.

The tribunal in The Hague, without seeking the ROC's views on the island or sending people to investigate the facts about it, made a ruling that violates common sense, he said.

"It is unfair in terms of procedure, and unreasonable in terms of substance," Ma wrote.

What is horrible is that the ruling has downgraded the status of Taiping Island, raised tensions and widened standoffs in the area and at the same time encroached upon the ROC's rights and interests and damaged peace in South China Sea -- while hurting the court's own image as a fair institution, he said.

Instead of settling disputes, the ruling has increased the possibility of conflicts over the disputed islands, Ma said, denouncing "the forces behind the ruling" as having won "face" but lost "substance" -- meaning winning the battle but losing the war.

He urged the government to "use all means" to protest such an absurd and unfair ruling and take concrete steps to protect the ROC's national interests.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and S.C. Chang)
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