Japan’s coast guard yesterday said it has arrested two Chinese boat skippers in separate cases of suspected illegal fishing in Japanese waters.
Officials said a 39-year-old skipper was arrested on Tuesday for alleged coral poaching off the Goto Islands near Kyushu and a second skipper was arrested on Wednesday near the Ogasawara islands, 1,000km south of Tokyo.
They said both allegedly ignored calls to stop for inspection, prompting a chase.
If convicted, the skippers could face up to six months in jail or a fine of up to ￥300,000 (US$3,840).
The arrests are a possible fresh test for sometimes fraught maritime relations, just days after a South Korean officer was stabbed to death at sea.
On Tuesday, a coast guard vessel pursued the fisherman’s 130 tonne boat for more than six hours after it was spotted lowering ropes into the water about 4km off the Goto Islands.
Japanese officers found some coral and tools to collect the organisms on the boat, but they have yet to determine whether they were taken from Japanese territorial waters, the coast guard said.
The boat’s captain, Zhong Jinyin (鍾進音), 39, was taken to the coast guard’s Nagasaki office while investigators inspected the boat, which had 10 other crew on board, a spokesman said.
The coast guard approached the boat at about 10:30pm on Monday, prompting the Chinese to flee, despite repeated Japanese orders to stop.
In total, five coast guard vessels took turns to chase the Chinese vessel until about 5 am, when the boat was stopped for an onboard inspection.
“We used a speed boat to bring the boat’s captain to [the coast guard’s office in] Nagasaki. The on-site investigation of the vessel is continuing, before we move the ship and the rest of the crew,” a spokesman said. “We are not experiencing any disobedient behavior from the captain.”
The latest arrest comes as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is scheduled to visit Beijing for two days, starting on Sunday.
China called on Japan to respect the rights of the fishermen.
“We have asked the Japanese side to ensure the safety of the Chinese crew and the boat, and ensure their legitimate rights and interests,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin (劉為民) told a press briefing.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS