Some consensus was reached in a new round of fishery talks between Taiwan and Japan on Friday but the two sides remained divided on the main issue addressed at the meeting.
The sticking point of the two-day talks that began in Suao in northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan county on Thursday involved the direction in which fishing lines are deployed and the distance between longline fishing boats during their operations in the two countries’ overlapping waters.
The Japanese side proposed that the two sides adopt its operating method, which requires fishing boats to draw their lines in a north-south direction and maintain a four-nautical mile distance between them.
The Taiwanese side, which has more fishing boats operating in the area, advocated keeping its traditional approach, which is to deploy lines in an east-west direction and maintain a one-nautical-mile distance between boats.
There are around 150 Taiwanese fishing boats operating in the overlapping areas of Taiwan and Japan’s exclusive economic zones, while Japan only has a few dozen.
There are concerns that if Taiwan were to comply with Japan’s request, the number of Taiwanese boats operating in the area would have to be reduced to just 50.
Chen Chun-sheng, head of the Suao Fishermen’s Association, said after the talks that the two sides’ operating habits prevented an agreement from being reached on the issue, but a consensus was reached on issues related to insurance and dispute management.
As part of the consensus, the Taiwanese side will ask the Fisheries Agency under the Council of Agriculture to require all Taiwanese fishing boats to have third-party liability insurance, Chen said.
The new requirement will enable the associations of the two fishing boats involved in a collision at sea to simply exchange insurance information and let insurance companies take over and quickly handle the claims, he said.
At the moment, some Taiwanese fishing boats operating alongside their Japanese counterparts do not have third-party liability coverage.
The two sides also reached a consensus on establishing a channel for settling disputes, which would enable Chinese and Japanese speakers on land to learn of an incident at sea via radio and help solve the problem.
In addition, the two sides agreed to hold further talks, although no date was set. The two sides held a previous round of discussions in Okinawa, Japan in May.
The conclusions of the latest talks will be submitted to a bilateral fishery commission for consideration, Chen said.
The series of talks, which have involved foreign affairs and fishery officials and fishing industry representatives from Taiwan and Japan, are being held after the signing of a historic bilateral fishery agreement in April.
That agreement gave Taiwanese fishermen an additional 4,530 square kilometers in which they could operate free of harassment by Japanese authorities, mostly near the disputed Diaoyutai (Senkaku or Diaoyu)islands.
The islands, some 100 nautical miles northeast of Taiwan, have been under Japan’s administrative control since 1972 but are also claimed by Taiwan and China (called the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China).
The surrounding waters have long been traditional fishing grounds for Taiwanese fishermen, but they were routinely chased away from the area by the Japanese authorities when they ventured too close to what Japan sees as its territorial waters.
2013 WantChinaTimes.com