President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) unusually strongly worded statement on Wednesday denouncing the Japan Coast Guard’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing boat stands in stark contrast to his lukewarm attitude over the deportation of Taiwanese from Kenya to China earlier this month.
In the statement, Ma vowed to take immediate concrete measures to safeguard Taiwan’s fishing rights within a range of 12 to 200 nautical miles (22.2km to 370.4km) around the uninhabited Okinotori atoll, calling it the high seas.