Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-18
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Pingtung County fishermen said on Monday that they plan to summon more than 10 fishing boats 
at the Yen-Pu fishing port and set sail for Taiping Island on July 20 to protect their fishing rights and prove to the world that Taiping is an island, not an atoll.
Fishing boat owner Cheng Chun-chung said the fishing boats will come back after 12 days.
The movement spokesperson Lo Chiang-fe said Taiping Island is 240 nautical miles from the Philippines and 325 nautical miles from Vietnam. As Taiping Island was regarded as an island in the past, the Philippines and Vietnam acquiesced in the overlapping 200 nautical miles of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that belongs to Taiwan, but the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague turns the island into a rock and makes everything different, Lo said.
Forty nautical miles off Taiping Island is the Philippines’ EEZ and 125 nautical miles off is Vietnam’s EEZ, which makes it very easy for Taiwanese fishing vessels to enter others’ EEZ, seriously affecting Taiwanese fishermen’s fishing rights, livelihood and safety. [FULL STORY]
