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CGA denies report of plan to bolster personnel on Taiping Island

ROC Central News Agency

2016/07/15 19:59:34

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) on Friday denied a report that it will send additional equipment and personnel to Taiping Island in the South China Sea amid escalating tensions after a controversial court ruling on the islands in the area.

The CGA described the report as "fabricated speculation" and urged media organizations to stop spreading groundless information and avoid fueling tensions that are detrimental to peaceful development in the region.

The report said the CGA will send its Taitung frigate to the Taiwan-controlled Taiping Island on Saturday to replace the Wei Hsing frigate, which has been stationed there since July 10 on a patrol mission to protect Taiwanese fishing boats operating there.

It also said that the Taitung frigate has been ordered to take equipment and personnel to the island for security purposes prior to a visit by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) next week.

The CGA acknowledged that it was deploying the Taitung frigate to the South China Sea and that it would replace the Wei Hsing frigate.

But it dismissed the report's contention that the ship would carry equipment and staff as "erroneous" and "unfounded."

The CGA said the Taitung frigate was being sent to the area in response to the new situation in the South China Sea following a July 12 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in a case the Philippines brought against China.

The court invalidated Beijing's use of historic rights to claim much of the South China Sea's islands and surrounding waters with a "nine-dash line."

It also agreed with the Philippines' argument that Taiping Island -- the biggest island in the Spratlys -- was not an island entitled to a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and therefore none of the other features around it were either, limiting China's, and indirectly Taiwan's, claim to waters in the sea.

Though Taiwan was not a party to the case, it reacted angrily to the decision. President Tsai Ing-wen said the ruling seriously infringed on the country's territorial claims and rights over islands in the South China Sea.

Opposition Kuomintang lawmakers urged Tsai to visit Taiping Island to stand up for Taiwan's sovereignty, but Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺), in response to the report of a possible visit, reiterated that there were no plans for Tsai to go there.

However, "such a possibility cannot be ruled out in the future," he said.

(By C.B. Liu and Flor Wang)
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