Washington, seeking stable relations with China as well, has also urged the six claimants to cooperate rather than fight.
As China builds artificial islands in a vast resource-rich South China Sea and neighbors in Southeast Asia brace for possible conflict, Taiwan is cutting carbon emissions and offering a hospital for humanitarian aid on the sea's largest natural islet to seek international approval for easing tension. Taiwan's unusual use of Taiping Island in the heavily contested Spratly archipelago may appeal particularly to the United States, a staunch, long-time informal ally that has at least scrutinized the legal basis for Taiwan's maritime claims.
Washington, seeking stable relations with China as well, has also urged the six claimants to cooperate rather than fight. Taiwan, which lacks the diplomatic ties to negotiate with the other five governments with claims in the South China Sea, has installed USD 1.29 million worth of solar panels on Taiping Island since 2011 to light a cluster of buildings and provide power for construction of a 200-meter (yard) pier due for completion by year's end, the head of the island's coast guard said yesterday.
Panels covering 1,570 square meters (16,890 square feet), enough to save about 32,000 liters (8,450 gallons) of diesel fuel last year, also will supply electricity to a five-bed hospital and living quarters that accept seafarers of any nationality, Coast Guard Administration Minister Wang Chung-yi said. Taiping receives about 10 foreign boats a year from China or Vietnam, usually during storms. The pier will make it easier for coast guard vessels or - if needed someday -- naval ships to dock, allowing more medical supplies to reach the five-bed hospital with a rotating staff as well as a surgery ward. Taiwan also has built a military airstrip on the coast guard-controlled Island.
"No one is in opposition. The United States approves," Wang said. "When the situation gets tense, our country's stance is to take a novel approach. Can't we put aside the dispute? Taiping Island has solar power and green energy that are telling the world we have a different perspective on operating it."
Taiwan's design for its 1,400-meter (4,590-foot) -long, 400-meter (1,312-foot) -wide islet contrasts to the campaigns by China and Vietnam to landfill multiple islets, build military bases and drive oil rigs into the ocean floor near the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. China had added some 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of land in the Spratly chain since last year, US officials said.
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