.jpg/dims/resize/740/optimize) |
| Ting Joseph Shih, head of Taipei Mission in Seoul, stands beside his national flag during Taiwan's National Day celebration at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The head of the Taipei Mission in Seoul said Thursday that Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou's peace initiative might be applicable to ease growing tensions in East Asia.
During a speech at a National Day ceremony at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul, Taipei Mission head Ting Joseph Shih said the Taiwanese leader's 2012 proposal, dubbed the East China Sea Peace Initiative, helped reduce fishery disputes.
"(The initiative) called on all concerned parties to shelve disagreements and engage in dialogue, and therefore helped ease rising tensions in East Asia caused by disputes regarding the Diaoyutai Islands," he said.
Diaoyutai in Taiwanese refers to the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which are also called Daioyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. Tensions between China and Japan have heightened in recent years, as both claim the islands to be part of their territory.
Taiwan also claimed that the islands are part of its territory.
Shih said Taiwanese President Ma's peace proposal calling for dialogue played a role in reducing the fishery dispute between Taiwan and Japan.
The Taiwanese official said there were 17 fishery disputes a year before the accord was signed in 2013, but there had been only one since then.
He said Taiwan's lesson could be applicable to East Asia, where territory and historical disputes have rekindled and relations among concerned nations have gone from bad to worse.
Diplomatic rows between China and Japan regarding the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea have shown no signs of letting up in recent years as the two sides have ratcheted up efforts to bolster their claims.
Korea-Japan relations have also shown no sign of improving as Japan remains reluctant to take measures to ease the dispute regarding the wartime sex slavery issue. The Korean government made it clear that there will be no summit between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unless Japan takes sincere measures to heal those wartime wounds.
On trade, Shih said Korea and Taiwan remained strong partners as bilateral trade reached $30.3 billion last year. He noted that Korea was Taiwan's sixth-largest trading partner, while Taiwan was Korea's seventh.
"I look forward to our two governments reaching a consensus to begin talks in the areas of investment, economic cooperation and avoidance of double taxation," he said.
