President Ma Ying-jeou has reiterated the importance of peacefully sharing the resources found in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Ma was speaking Thursday during a meeting with scholars attending a forum on peace in the waters off East Asia.
Ma said that while Taiwan’s sovereignty over the disputed waters is not open to compromise, Taiwan is willing to share resources found there. Ma has dubbed this policy the South China Sea Peace Initiative, a parallel policy to his earlier East China Sea Peace Initiative.
"We think that several disputes over sovereignty in East Asia can’t necessarily be resolved through judicial channels or arbitration," said Ma.
"Therefore, we think that we can copy the model of the East China Sea Peace Initiative, which holds that sovereignty over the islands cannot be divided up but resources can be shared. Perhaps then we can find a channel to resolve [the area’s problems]," he said.
Ma said, however, that Taiwan’s sovereignty over the area is the result of the 1952 Treaty of Taipei, which formally ended the Second Sino-Japanese War.