Rapacious and indiscriminate fishing methods used by Chinese fishing vessels are not only damaging the marine ecology in Taiwanese territorial waters, but are also depriving Taiwanese fishermen of their source of livelihood, the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said.
While amendments passed in June last year increasing fines deterred Chinese fishing boats for a short time, with the number of Chinese fishing boats in the area dropping from 277 in 2014 to 79 last year, poachers have been acting in concert of late, the administration said.
Chinese ships were using bad weather to their advantage to fish illegally in Taiwanese waters, making it more difficult for the coast guard to board their ships, the CGA said, adding that a large number of vessels entered Taiwanese fishing grounds in August and used electrofishing, triple-layered gillnets, roller trawls and even poison to catch fish.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
The administration said that in March it stopped a Chinese ship named Ching Ching Fishing 05055 south of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and found three green sea turtles, 15,000kg of coral, 400kg of giant clams and tadpole snails, as well as 40kg of toxic chemicals onboard.
Captain Huang Hsuan-kai (黃宣凱), head of the administration’s patrol force in Kinmen, said Chinese fishing boats scoured fishing grounds so thoroughly that they could in one night deprive other fishermen of a catch for three days.
Academia Sinica researcher Cheng Ming-hsiu (鄭明修) said fishing zones around the Pratas Islands and Penghu were the most severely damaged, as they were frequented by illegal fishermen from China and Vietnam.
In the past five years, the CGA has driven Chinese ships away from the two zones more than 700 times, Cheng said, adding that 90 percent of fishing resources in the region have vanished in the past 30 years.
Strong action must be taken to defend waters within 3 nautical miles (5.5km) of the coast, as such areas are typically the zones where fish and shrimp lay their eggs, Cheng said.
A recent spike in the number of crabs and shrimp in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and Penghu shows that fish that eat young shrimp and crabs are disappearing, Cheng said, adding that if allowed to continue, the food chain would be disrupted.
Keelung Coastal Fishing Association director Lin Hsin-yung (林新永) said that Chinese ships often electrified their roller trawls, which causes great damage to marine life, as well as coral.
Lin said he had heard Chinese fishermen say that they were fishing in Taiwanese waters because their own coastal fishing supplies were running low due to the over-use of blast-fishing techniques.
Lin added that some Chinese ships try to get a cut from Taiwanese fishermen by trying to “muscle” their way into Taiwanese boats to get a share by force.
‘HONORED’: The DPP’s Lin Fei-fan said friends working in the foreign media, the diplomatic corps and at think tanks congratulated him for making the sanctions list The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday slammed China for sanctioning Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and six other Taiwanese officials for being “diehard separatists,” saying its attempt to intimidate Taiwanese would backfire. China has no authority to dictate the actions of Taiwanese, because Taiwan is a democratic nation that upholds the rule of law, and would never yield to intimidation and threats from an authoritarian regime, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news conference in Taipei. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency earlier yesterday reported that the Taiwan Work Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee has imposed
ORDNANCE: Under a five-year plan, the Chungshan Institute would make about 200 Hsiung Feng II and III/IIIE, and Hsiung Sheng missiles, an official said The Ministry of National Defense plans to counter the Chinese navy by producing more than 1,000 anti-ship missiles over the next five years, a defense official familiar with the matter said yesterday. The comments came after China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy began a series of military drills in a simulated naval blockade of Taiwan proper following a visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Although China has in the past few years rapidly produced many warships and added them to its navy, these large vessels are more suited for warfare on the open sea than in the narrow
THAI ASSISTANCE: The representative office in Thailand worked with local authorities to help trafficking victims return home, while one in the group has been charged Eight Taiwanese who were lured to Cambodia with lucrative job offers only to be forced to work illegally were brought home on Sunday night in a joint effort between Taiwanese and Thai authorities, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said. Nine people — six men and three women aged 23 to 42 — boarded China Airlines Flight CI-836 from Bangkok, with assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 9:55pm and were taken to the Aviation Police Bureau for questioning before entering home isolation in accordance with Taiwan’s COVID-19 regulations. The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday
The organizers of WorldPride 2025 have canceled the Kaohsiung event because its licensing group, InterPride, demanded that it remove “Taiwan” from the event’s name, they said in a statement yesterday. Kaohsiung was to host WorldPride Taiwan 2025 after being granted the right by the global LGBTQ advocacy group. However, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee said that InterPride recently gave “abrupt notice” asking it to change the name of the event and use “Kaohsiung” instead of “Taiwan,” even though it applied for the event using “Taiwan” in its name. The name was initially chosen for its significance to the Taiwanese LGBTQ community, as