Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou will fly to the Taiwanese-held island of Itu Aba in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday, a visit that comes amid growing international concern over rising tensions in the contested waterway.
Ma's office said the president, who steps down in May, wanted to offer Chinese New Year wishes to residents on Itu Aba, mainly Taiwanese coast guard personnel and environmental scholars. Ma will spend a few hours on Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan, his office added.
Itu Aba lies in the Spratly archipelago, where China's rapid construction of seven man-made islands has drawn alarm across parts of Asia and been heavily criticized by Washington. Taiwan has just finished a $100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, which has its own airstrip, a hospital and fresh water.
Ma's visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ma's office said it had asked DPP leader Tsai Ing-wen to send a representative, but the party said it had no plans to do so.
Both Taiwan and China claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims.
Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected the Philippines and Vietnam to lodge a strong protest, likely seeing the visit as a violation of their claimed sovereignty over Itu Aba. "But I do think it is unlikely they would stage a similar visit involving a senior political figure going to one of their own occupied islands ... that would risk inflaming relations with China and neither want to go that far," Storey said.
Asked to comment on Ma's planned visit, the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office reiterated that China and Taiwan had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the waterway, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.
US unhappy with Taiwan president’s planned visit South China Sea
Taiwan President Ma’s one-day visit to Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan, comes amid growing international concern over rising tensions in the waterway and quickly drew the ire of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties. “We are disappointed that President Ma Ying-jeou plans to travel to Taiping Island,” AIT spokeswoman Sonia Urbom said to media.