TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan should clarify its national security strategy and assert sovereignty over its claims in the South China Sea, according to a Taiwan security expert and a retired Navy admiral turned legislator. 

Speaking at a conference on cross-strait relations and the South China Sea organized by the Taiwan Center for Security Studies (TCSS) on Thursday (Aug. 29), the center’s Director Fu-kuo Liu (劉復國) said that Taiwan needs a systematic strategy to protect its sovereignty claims in the region. He said this is lacking and the need for a strategy is pressing given the heightened US-China competition in the area.

Over the past nine years, Taiwan's government has shown disinterest in the South China Sea, Liu said. He added that Taiwan can only develop a strategy in the South China Sea once it asserts its sovereignty claims there.

Liu added the government has not allocated enough funding for research on the region as it relates to Taiwan. “I’m hoping that there will be a time when academics can come up with a systematic procedure (for the South China Sea,) but this has not been done yet,” he said.

Liu likened Taiwan’s claims in the South China Sea to the importance of maintaining sovereignty over the Kinmen and Matsu Islands, which lie just off China’s coast. He said that as Taiwan is a democracy, decisions about Taiwan’s claims in the South China Sea should be made based on majority opinion.

Taiwan’s claims in the South China Sea are not recognized under international law, and its islands are also claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei or some combination thereof. The Taiwan Coast Guard controls Taiping Island in the Spratly group, an adjacent reef, and Dongsha Island.

Former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) outlined a framework for the South China Sea in 2016, which includes working with the international community to resolve disputes according to international law. Also in 2016, Taiwan rejected a ruling by an international tribunal that classified Taiping Island as a rock, meaning it is not entitled to the exclusive economic zone that is granted to islands.

Retired Taiwan Navy Admiral Chen Yeong-yang (陳永康) also spoke at the TCSS conference and gave more detail on Taiwan’s presence in the region. Chen, who is a legislator for the Kuomintang (KMT) and a member of the legislature's foreign affairs and defense committee, said that Taiwan should use diplomatic channels to challenge other parties whose claims overlap with Taiwan's.

Chen said Taiwan has a Coast Guard garrison on Dongsha Island, and maintains a maritime domain and territorial sea there. He said Taiwan does not have a territorial sea around Taiping Island because it is too close to neighboring islands. 

Chen said that according to Taiwan law, Taiwan claims a maritime domain over the Philippine-controlled Scarborough Shoal, which China also actively claims. However, he said because the Scarborough Shoal is unable to be built upon, Taiwan does not involve itself there.

Senior Fellow for Chinese Security at the National Bureau of Asian Research Roy Kamphausen provided a US perspective at the conference. He described an increase in tensions in the South China Sea over recent months as “low-level crises.”

Kamphausen said because Taiwan’s claims are not physically threatened by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at present, Taipei has little to gain from being vocal about them at the international level. “That Taiwan’s position on the South China Sea is much closer to the PRC is not well appreciated or understood in Washington, in fact, it’s a confounding point,” he said.

“I think we should allow for the possibility that the administration here has not pressed that issue precisely for that reason,” he said.

Kamphausen said Taiwan risks confusing the US by raising the claims as a key issue. He also said that arguing for the claims when they are not physically at risk is not worth it for Washington.

Chen also admitted Taiwan’s South China Sea claims are not currently physically threatened by the PRC. However, he said it is important to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty in the South China Sea to combat China’s “gray zone activity,” a term referring to the use of ambiguous or unconventional methods to achieve strategic goals while avoiding direct or open conflict.