On May 9, the Taiwan fishing boat Guang Da Xing No. 28 was fired upon by a Philippine government ship, crippling the boat's engine and causing the death of one man. The two sides discussed the incident for several days, at the end of which the ROC government resolutely refused to accept the Philippines’ equivocal and inadequate response to the ROC demand for a formal apology.
Because the Philippines is a country with a system and ways of doing things that are markedly different from Taiwan, this incident also reflects the difficulties faced in interactions between the two parties over the past several decades. After two weeks of turmoil, on May 21 the Philippines president expressed his willingness for the Philippines to engage in fishing negotiations with Taiwan. The two sides need to maintain a rational, peaceful attitude and return the matter to diplomatic channels, to bring this controversy to a close with all possible speed.
With the arrival of the southern bluefin tuna season, the fishing boat Guang Da Xing No. 28, based in Xiaoliuqiu in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County, headed out from Dafu Fishing Harbor on May 4 to operate in ocean waters southeast of Eluanbi (Taiwan’s southernmost tip).
Around 10 a.m. on May 9, at 20 degrees north latitude and 123 degrees east longitude, about 164 nautical miles east-southeast of Eluanbi, an armed Philippine government vessel suddenly opened fire on the fishing boat. The gunfire disabled the boat’s instruments and engine. Hong Shicheng, a 65-year-old fisherman, was struck in the neck and killed.
The red dotted line indicates the limit of the zone extending 200 nautical miles from the ROC’s territorial sea baseline (the basis for delineating an EEZ). The blue dotted line shows the Philippines’ 200-mile zone. There is clearly a large area of overlap.
Early in the morning of May 11, the fishing boat was towed back to Xiaoliuqiu, and the Pingtung District Prosecutors Office then collected evidence on the damage to the boat. The investigators discovered a large number of bullet marks, with at least 45 bullet holes. Thus the Philippine vessel had used inappropriate armed force, a serious breach of international law. At the time of the incident, the location of the Guang Da Xing was about 164 nautical miles from Taiwan, in an area where the “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs) of Taiwan and the Philippines overlap.
For a long time now there have been many incidents over fishing where the EEZs of Taiwan and the Philippines overlap.
In January of 2006, the fishing boat Man Chun Yi, based in Taitung, while fishing in waters north of the Philippines, was approached by a small white vessel carrying Philippine marine police who, after shouting a few sentences, opened fire. The captain of the Man Chun Yi immediately steered away from the area. But the small vessel pursued the fishing boat, and continually fired on its cabin. Captain Chen Anlao was struck in an artery in his right thigh and died of excessive blood loss.
To uphold the ROC’s maritime rights and protect its fishermen, the ROC Ministry of Defense and Coast Guard promptly launched a fishery protection operation. The photo shows an ROC combat task force, led by a minesweeper to ensure safe sailing, headed on a mission toward the Bashi Channel (the strait between Taiwan and the Philippines).
The ROC government decided right from the start to use peaceful means to attain justice. The ROC made four demands, asking the Philippine government to (1) formally apologize, (2) compensate for the damage and loss of life, (3) rapidly investigate the incident and severely punish the perpetrator(s), and (4) open fishing negotiations between Taiwan and the Philippines with all possible speed. But the attitude of the Philippine government was equivocal, and the Philippine side did not give any satisfactorily clear-cut response.
The ROC government then took several steps. In addition to freezing applications for the new hiring of Philippine workers in Taiwan, recalling the ROC representative to the Philippines, and demanding that the Philippines representative in Taiwan return home to assist in seeing that the incident be properly handled, the government also adopted eight sanction measures, including: announcing a “red” warning light for tourism and travel to the Philippines; halting economic, technical, and fisheries exchanges between the two sides; and holding joint fishery protection operations between the ROC Ministry of Defense and Coast Guard in the seas south of Taiwan.
On May 12, the Coast Guard dispatched a further ship, the Tainan, with a crew of 36, from Kaohsiung Harbor to head to the seas south of Taiwan to rendezvous with the Fuxing and the Xunhu No. 1, and undertake a four-day mission to protect fishing boats.
On May 16, when greeting a group of participants in the Asia-Pacific Research Forum of the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law, President Ma Ying-jeou pointed out that there is a very large area of overlap between the EEZs of Taiwan and the Philippines. For many decades now, the Philippines has often subjected Taiwan fishing boats to demands to submit to boarding, confiscations, or fines, and has even killed Taiwan fishermen. The Charter of the United Nations states “all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means.” Also, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was concluded in 1982 and took effect in 1994, says that when enforcing the law, states are limited—even within their own EEZs—to only four actions: boarding, inspection, arrest, and judicial proceedings. It absolutely forbids opening fire or killing. The Philippines should respect international rules, but instead a Philippine government vessel fired—using automatic weapons—on an unarmed and unprovocative fishing boat from Taiwan, an action clearly not falling within the reasonable scope of carrying out its official duties. Ma characterized the killing as “cold-blooded murder.”
Besides expressing his hope that both sides would deal with the incident in a calm, peaceful manner, President Ma also ordered the relevant agencies to protect the safety of the more than 80,000 Filipino laborers working in Taiwan, to ensure that they can live and work with peace of mind.
Clarifying the truth, cooperative investigationsOn May 16, an investigative team from the ROC Ministry of Justice that traveled to the Philippines was met with obstruction. Previously, the Philippine media had gone so far as to claim that the fishing boat had “crossed the boundary to fish illegaly,” and had tried to ram the Philippine government vessel.
In response, on May 19 Administrative Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang, speaking to an international press conference, for the first time made public the voyage data recorder (VDR) record of the Guang Da Xing No. 28 as well as photos of the bullet holes. It could clearly be seen that the firing by the Philippine vessel was concentrated around the cabin, where the crew congregate, with 26 of the bullet holes being found within five meters of that location. The VDR record indicated that the Guang Da Xing had at no point entered Philippine territorial waters, and moreover, that at the time the incident occurred, it had switched over to automatic pilot to rapidly leave the area. There was no possibility that the fishing boat had tried to ram the Philippine government vessel. Chen called on the Philippine government to release its own vessel’s VDR record for comparison.
ROC foreign minister David Y.L. Lin noted that Taiwan’s original proposal for a “joint investigation” was rejected by the Philippines on grounds that it would infringe on sovereignty. Based on the Taiwan-Philippines Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, the ROC then requested “cooperative investigations,” and the two sides have reached consensus on this point. Under the cooperative investigation process, when investigative teams from one country go to the other country, they will receive local cooperation, and the two parties will undertake a comparison of the evidence related to the incident in their final reports.
To paraphrase a well-known saying, negotiations are at the heart of diplomacy, and compromise is at the heart of negotiations. The only way that diplomatic balance can be maintained is through give and take. The Republic of China is a peace-loving nation in international society, and when faced with disputes, will always take a pragmatic and peaceful attitude toward resolving controversies.
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