A Taiwanese fishing boat, escorted by five coast guard vessels, yesterday approached to within 0.4 nautical miles (740m) of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), in the largest flare-up in tensions over the islets since since 2008.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura condemned the act at a press conference yesterday morning, saying that under no circumstances and for no reason are Taiwanese activists allowed to enter the waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, the Japanese term for the Diaoyutai Islands, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported yesterday.
The Sankei Shimbun reported that an information contact point under a Cabinet crisis management center had been set up at Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s official residence to monitor the situation.
Photo: AFP
The Interchange Association, Japan, which represents Japan in Taipei, registered its protest with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ East Asian Relations Commission.
Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽), an official at the Coast Guard Administration in Taipei, said last night that it was the strongest protest the Japanese government has made over the territorial dispute since 2008.
The last time a Japanese chief Cabinet secretary made an official complaint was on June 16, 2008, when Taiwanese activists came within 0.4 nautical miles of the island, the closest Taiwanese activists have ever come to the Diaoyutai Islands, Hsieh said.
The June 16 event occurred five days after Japan arrested a Taiwanese fishing boat captain following a collision near the islands, he said.
In Taipei, the government adopted a relatively low-key approach.
Executive Yuan spokesperson Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉) declined to comment, saying the question should be referred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Keelung City Coast Guard unit captain Chen Sih-chuan (陳泗川), who was in charge of protecting the Taiwanese fishing boat, called a press conference at 5:30pm to explain the mission.
Chen said that coast guard personnel prevented Japanese maritime authorities from boarding a Taiwanese fishing boat at 8:57am and a patrol vessel had a minor collision with a Japanese patrol vessel at 11:46am on their way back to Keelung.
The fishing boat, with nine people on board — three activists, three sailors and three fishermen — set sail at 11:34pm on Thursday night and the coast guard dispatched five vessels to escort the fishing boat at about 8:25am, Chen said.
Chen said the fishing boat, surrounded by five patrol vessels, started to return at 9:02am, while Japanese patrol vessels followed them until the collision occurred.
“We conducted the mission to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty and its fishing boats, and maintain a ‘no conflict’ and ‘no avoidance’ policy in the Diaoyutai Islands,” he said.
Late last night, the ministry issued a press release saying it did not accept the protest lodged by the Interchange Association, Japan because Taiwanese fishing boats have the right to enter waters that belong to the Republic of China.
China deployed a record number of coast guard, scientific research and other ships near Taiwan’s waters last month, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said, as Beijing dials up pressure on Taipei. The coast guard warned of an increasingly severe situation, as analysts say the increased activity is part of China’s bid to map the region for submarine warfare. The number of Chinese ships detected around Taiwan proper soared to a record 244 last month — an average of nearly eight every day, official data showed. That compares with 55 ships detected in June and 30 in May, and 58 in July last year. In
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday launched an investigation following allegations by a former foreign correspondent in Taiwan of widespread vote-buying in Hualien County. In an interview with Formosa TV (FTV, 民視) aired on Saturday, former Financial Times Taiwan correspondent Kathrin Hille spoke about Taiwan’s democracy and said that she now lives in rural Hualien, where “all the votes are bought.” Neighbors would talk about who had come by and leave cash on the table showing “how much each vote was worth that year,” Hille said. The practice needs to be addressed, considering Taiwan has been a democracy for many
Taiwan is bracing for heavy rain in the south and rough seas around outlying Lienchiang County (Matsu), as Typhoon Saudel passes north toward eastern China, with forecasters yesterday warning of localized flooding over the next two days. Saudel is expected to pass closest to Taiwan today, when its outer rain bands are forecast to brush past Matsu, before making landfall at about noon in China’s Zhejiang Province and weakening significantly, the Central Weather Administration said. The storm’s outer bands, combined with strengthening southwesterly winds, are expected to bring heavy rain to southern and southeastern Taiwan today, it said. As the storm approaches Matsu,
LIMITED: The bill’s NT$40bn annual spending cap would prevent Taiwan from effectively building up its drone combat capabilities, National Defense Minister Wellington Koo said The legislature yesterday rejected the Executive Yuan’s NT$210 billion (US$6.62 billion) special budget proposal to buy military drones and instead passed its own plan, which earmarks NT$40 billion per year over six consecutive years. The Executive Yuan said its plan to buy about 210,000 drones by 2031 could not wait, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran showed the importance of uncrewed systems in modern warfare amid a rising threat from China. However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their opposition majority to pass a bill providing NT$240 billion through annual budgets over six years, with annual
RSS