Left Out: How Japan-Philippines Maritime Talks Threaten Taiwan's Eastern Waters

When Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. announced at their Tokyo summit on May 28 that the two countries would begin formally delimiting their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelves in the Pacific, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially issued a statement of welcome. The backlash was swift. The ministry reversed course within days, insisting the negotiations posed no threat to Taiwan's rights under international law and that the whole exercise was really about China anyway.

Huang Yi (黃異) thinks that explanation is wrong on both counts.

A former director of the Institute of Ocean Law at National Taiwan Ocean University, now based in Australia, Huang has published a standard textbook on international maritime law and participated directly in Taiwan's territorial sea working group and fisheries negotiations. His verdict on the government's framing is blunt: "That is about the most extraordinary argument I have ever heard."

Huang's core argument is simple. Whether Taiwan presents itself to the world as an independent state or as a political entity operating within a one-China framework, international law entitles it to claim a 200-nautical-mile EEZ. That entitlement does not hinge on diplomatic recognition, and the government "has no reason to say no to it."

The ministry's suggestion that the Japan-Philippines talks concern China and therefore leave Taiwan's interests intact fundamentally misreads the legal situation. Taiwan's eastern waters overlap substantially with the zones now under negotiation. Under international law, all parties whose claimed EEZs overlap are obligated to resolve those boundaries through mutual consultation, meaning Japan and the Philippines cannot simply proceed as if Taiwan does not exist. "Once they finish drawing the line, Taiwan gets pushed outside it," Huang said. "How can that be unrelated to Taiwan?"

Excluding Taiwan from the process, he argued, is not just diplomatically inconvenient. It already constitutes a breach of international law.

Much of the public debate around EEZs in Taiwan has been factually muddled, Huang said, and the government's handling of this episode reflects that confusion. Coastal state rights within an EEZ are more limited than rights over territorial waters or land. But they are far from trivial: the coastal state holds jurisdiction over fisheries, environmental protection, and natural resource extraction within the zone. Foreign fishing vessels operating in Taiwan's EEZ are subject to Taiwan's Fisheries Act, which requires vessels to hold a valid license before putting to sea, a standard that Japan and most other coastal states apply equally.

Seabed mineral extraction has historically been less of a flashpoint due to technological constraints, but the relevant rights remain exclusive to the coastal state. More immediately relevant, Huang said, is jurisdiction over artificial structures within the zone, including buoys and offshore installations. Any foreign government seeking to place such structures inside Taiwan's EEZ would require Taipei's consent.

He drew a clear line on one area where EEZ rights do not apply: military activity. International law grants coastal states no jurisdiction over foreign military operations within their EEZ. Arguments invoking freedom of navigation or national security, including those framing Chinese military movements as the central issue, "are simply nonsense," he said.

The tendency of Taiwan's government, and some Japanese officials, to invoke China in the context of the EEZ talks reflects a broader conceptual confusion that Huang said runs deep in Taiwanese public discourse: conflating state recognition with government recognition.

Japan and the Philippines, he explained, did not stop recognizing Taiwan as a state when they switched diplomatic ties to Beijing. They transferred recognition from one government to another. "In Taiwan, many people mix up 'state recognition' and 'government recognition,'" he said. "These are two different things."

In practice, however, that distinction has made delimitation negotiations nearly impossible. Because Japan and the Philippines recognize the Beijing government, they have repeatedly declined to negotiate with Taipei on maritime boundaries. Huang described the impasse from personal experience: "Japan simply refused to negotiate with us. I know how it went. We could not push it forward. It was the same with the Philippines. The Philippines refused to talk to us, saying the government it recognizes is in Beijing."

The result has been a tacit informal arrangement: when fishing disputes arise in contested waters, each side manages its own vessels and works to contain rather than escalate.

Huang's recommended response begins with groundwork Taiwan has not yet done. Before any negotiation can be credible, he said, Taipei must unilaterally define and publish its own 200-nautical-mile EEZ boundary, including where it overlaps with the zones claimed by Japan and the Philippines. "Without adequate groundwork, you cannot come to the negotiating table."

He acknowledged the scale of the challenge. Maritime boundary disputes are among the most intractable in international law, routinely taking decades to resolve. The practical approach used by most states, and the one Taiwan has employed in the past, is to set delimitation aside temporarily and address specific disputes through provisional arrangements. Taiwan's existing fisheries agreements with both Japan and the Philippines follow exactly this model.

But provisional arrangements require a clear underlying legal position, and Taiwan must establish one. On the current Japan-Philippines process, Huang was unequivocal: Taipei must formally declare that it will not accept the outcome of any delimitation to which it was not a party, and must lodge a factual protest asserting its entitlements. The Philippines, he added, deserves particular attention. As an internationally recognized archipelagic state, it draws baselines connecting its outermost islands, producing an unusually expansive territorial sea and a correspondingly large EEZ. Taiwanese fishing vessels have already been caught inside Philippine waters as a result.

If enforcement in overlapping zones eventually becomes necessary, Huang said, Taiwan should exclude Japanese and Philippine activities while simultaneously pursuing dialogue through every available channel.

The cost of inaction is concrete. Without a stated position backed by firm measures, Taiwan surrenders legal standing by default, not through any formal act but simply through silence. "Taiwan's current situation is very difficult," Huang said. "The government needs to find ways to address each individual issue. But you still have to state your position clearly."

​Original Article in Chinese

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