China has begun combat-ready patrols in the waters around a disputed group of islands in the South China Sea, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Asked what China would do in response to Vietnamese air patrols over the Spratly Islands (南沙群島), ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng (耿雁生) said Beijing would “resolutely oppose any militarily provocative behavior.”
“In order to protect national sovereignty and our security and development interests, the Chinese military has already set up a normal, combat-ready patrol system in seas under our control,” he said.
China is involved in a long-running dispute with Vietnam and the Philippines about ownership of the South China Sea and its myriad, mostly uninhabited, islands and atolls. Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have claims.
Philippine officials said on Wednesday that Chinese fishing boats had returned to a disputed shoal despite an agreement to clear the area of all vessels.
The current standoff between China and the Philippines in the Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines began in April when Manila accused Chinese fishermen of poaching in its exclusive economic zone, including the shoal. During the tensions, both sides have sent government ships to the area.
A recent agreement saw both countries withdraw vessels, but Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said six Chinese fishing boats and 17 smaller dinghies were spotted by a Philippine plane inside the lagoon on Monday afternoon. He said five Chinese government ships were sighted outside the lagoon in the vicinity of the shoal.
In Hanoi, Vietnam has also protested a weekend announcement by China’s CNOOC Ltd (中國海洋石油) that it was opening nine oil and gas lots for international bidders, in areas overlapping with existing Vietnamese exploration blocks.
Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said the lots being offered by China lie entirely within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. He said in a statement posted on Tuesday on the ministry’s Web site that China’s move was illegal and the bidding should cease immediately.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
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