By Shannon Tiezzi
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said Taipei will not cooperate (with) Beijing to advance maritime territorial claims.
A spokesman from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) confirmed on Thursday that Taiwan will not cooperate with China to handle territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Earlier, spokesman Ma Xiaoguang of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) had said that the PRC had proposed cross-strait cooperation on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Beijing’s extensive claims to the South China (Sea) were originally drawn up by the Republic of China government, which moved to Taiwan in 1949. Officially, Taiwan’s territorial claims are the same as the mainland’s. Accordingly, the PRC has suggested that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should cooperate to push forward their claims. “Safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the overall interests of the Chinese nation should be a common obligation of compatriots of the two sides,” Xinhua quoted TAO spokesman Ma Xiaoguang as saying.
The response from Taiwan rejected that idea. Both MAC spokeswoman Wu Mei-hung and Foreign Minister David Lin said that Taiwan would not cooperate with the PRC on territorial issues. Wu said Taiwan saw no possibility of cooperating with China on the South China Sea, and emphasized that this has long been Taiwan’s official government stance.
Read the full story at The Diplomat