America's Crazed Taiwan policy...

A pigeon house outside Shihgang.

Sourabh Gupta has appeared in several venues as a commentator on the South China Sea and Senkakus messes. His writing is deeply pro-PRC: you could get the same point of view from Xinhua, and the bombast is even more amusing. But in the best broken clock fashion, even Gupta sometimes says something useful. Over at the East Asia Forum, he scribes in response to the US overflight of international waters claimed by China:

If Itu Aba/Taiping Island — an ‘island’ that is administered by Taiwan — is considered to be Chinese territory as per the ‘One China’ policy, then every China-administered feature in the Spratlys chain is encompassed within this exclusive economic zone area up to the median line.

It is legal for nations to build artificial islands within their EEZ. This means that China can use the ROC-administered Itu Aba (which should be Vietnamese) to claim an EEZ in the Spratlys, because both are "China". Neat, eh?

This was the policy that the US committed to when the Obama Administration supported the KMT. Way to go, Washington. It's a good thing there aren't any tensions anymore, thanks to Washington's support of the KMT, and the US is not directly confronting China anywhere.

Meanwhile two good pieces out on contrasting visits: a very good piece by the wonderful Deb Wu from Nikkei Asian Review on the Tsai visit to the US, and a great one from Thinking Taiwan by Lai I-chung on Eric Chu's kowtow to Xi Jin-ping.
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