President Ma Ying-jeou says he hopes Taiwan’s promotion of regional peace can also include the South China Sea. Ma was speaking on Tuesday while receiving the president of the Central American Parliament, Armando Bardales Paz.
Ma is speaking of the East China Sea Peace Initiative he proposed in 2012. He said Taiwan has had controversies in surrounding waters with neighboring countries like Japan and the Philippines. But it has been able to resolve fishery issues with those countries in recent years through jointly developing the area’s natural resources and signing agreements. Ma said he hopes the same can be practiced in the South China Sea.
“We hope to extend Taiwan’s approach to the South China Sea," said Ma.
"That means “while sovereignty cannot be divided, natural resources can be shared”. So we hope in the future, under peaceful and prosperous conditions, we can have peaceful exchanges with Mainland China, Japan, the Philippines and countries in the South China Sea and promote mutual prosperity.”
At the meeting, Ma also mentioned the FTAs that Taiwan recently signed with other countries and Taiwan’s aim to liberalize trade. He spoke of Taiwan’s bid to join regional trade bodies, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Ma hopes Taiwan would not be marginalized in regional economic integration.