China has granted its border patrol police the right to board and turn away foreign ships entering disputed waters in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, as the territorial row rumbled on.
The move comes after Beijing infuriated its neighbors by issuing new passports containing a map showing its claim to almost the whole of the South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines are refusing to stamp the documents.
Hainan Province passed new regulations this week allowing local police “to board, seize and expel foreign ships illegally entering the province’s sea areas,” the Global Times reported.
Activities defined as illegal include “illegally halting or dropping anchor ... and carrying out publicity campaigns that endanger China’s national security,” Xinhua news agency said.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊), asked about the new rules, said it was “the legitimate right of the sovereign state” to carry out “maritime management.” Hainan Province administers about 2 million square kilometers of ocean, including the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which are also claimed in whole or in part by Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia.
The Global Times quoted Li Zhaojie (李兆傑), a Tsinghua University professor, as saying the regulation could lead to stricter enforcement of Beijing’s right to expel ships entering its territory illegally.
Li said these rights were granted by a UN convention.
“In the past, when foreign ships broke the UN convention, the best thing our patrol could do was chase them out of China’s waters. The new regulation will change that, and give the patrol force the legal means to actually do its job,” he said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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