Philippine Daily Inquirer
May 16th, 2012
This refers to Raul Pangalangan’s column “Scarborough: turning crisis into opportunity.” (Inquirer, 5/4/12) The Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan), through the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines, would like to explain its position on the South China Sea dispute.
Pangalangan wrote: “Taiwan’s intrusion shows that Scarborough is not a purely bilateral dispute as China insists. It should drive the Chinese up the law as they insist that it’s really still bilateral since, technically speaking, Taiwan is part of China.” We would like to emphasize that by the established standards of international law, the ROC meets all the requirements of statehood and is in fact a fully established democracy with a government elected and accountable to the island’s citizenry, capable of effective decision-making and of fulfilling its international obligations. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never exercised jurisdiction and control over Taiwan; it is absolutely clear that Taiwan is not its province, nor is the government of the ROC a local government of the PRC.damage at the opening of trade on Tuesday. [FULL STORY]
