Taipei: Taiwan's president, defying a rare dose of criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea today and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region.
Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou (MAH YEENG JOH) left the capital Taipei early on Thursday morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba.
Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea.
After arriving, Ma spoke at a national monument on the islet and reiterated his call made in 2015 for peaceful coexistence and joint development. He cited infrastructure developments on the islet, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters.
Taiwan is spending more than USD 100 million to upgrade the island's airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock.
"All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," Ma said.
Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals.
China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. 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.
There was no immediate response to Ma's visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijing's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the South China Sea islands.
"Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides" of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang said at a biweekly news briefing.
The Philippines, which occupies a string of islands and reefs near the island Ma will visit, expressed its concern over the trip.
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