Taiwan’s president visits island in disputed area of South China Sea amid tensions over rival territorial claims in region
Taiwan’s outgoing president, defying criticism from key ally the United States, visited to an island holding in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region.
Ma Ying-jeou and about 30 members of his staff left the capital Taipei early in the morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba.
It lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with mainland China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea.
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Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area, but has recently been eclipsed in size by man-made islands created by Beijing out of reefs and shoals.
The mainland has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the US and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region.
Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping.
It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north.