Hundreds of Chinese fishermen are crammed like sardines in the dark, smelly cabin of the Sea Dragon anchored off Taiwan's northeast coast, resting for the night before their next fishing trips.
For Yu Changjin, a 40-year-old native of Fujian province, the "floating hotel" off Suao Harbor has been his second home for almost 10 years.
PHOTO: REUTERS
He eats, sleeps, and relaxes in the shabby boat house converted from an old, 300-tonne fishing vessel, where the air is constantly filled with the smells of salty sea, dead fish and urine.
He and the thousands of others who underpin Taiwan's fishing industry are at the center of a brewing diplomatic spat, as Beijing accuses Taipei of violating the men's human rights.
"For people like us who work for somebody else, what right do we have to complain?" Yu said of his life on boat.
"I have a heavy burden on my shoulder. A family of six all depend on me," Yu said as he lit a cigarette. Beside his bed, four were playing cards while others were staring at a small television screen showing a Taiwanese drama.
Yu had hoped to return to his Pingtan hometown for a rare Lunar New Year reunion with his mother, wife and four children, only to be disappointed after Beijing slapped a ban on Chinese seamen working in Taiwan on Feb. 1.
"The captain tells us if we go home we can't come back again," Yu said.
China's labor ban could cripple Taiwan's fishing industry, which has long depended upon Chinese seamen. Taiwan employs about 30,000 Chinese, more than half the industry's work force.
"It will devastate Taiwan's fishing industry," said Hu Shih-kuan, owner of the Sea Dragon.
The floating hotels appeared in the early 1990s when the illegal business of employing Chinese on Taiwan's fishing boats flourished following a political thaw between Taipei and Beijing.
Taiwanese employers visit agents across the Strait to hire seamen to work on their fishing boats. The boats drop the crew back at their hotels at the end of a trip before docking in port.
Once located over 22km off the Taiwan coast, the boat houses were later allowed to dock in anchorage zones after scores of fishermen were drowned during typhoons.
Fishermen from China are paid an average US$150 per month, less than half their local peers, who are protected by Taiwan's labor laws.
China blames Taiwan for numerous disputes between Chinese fishermen and Taiwanese owners. It also accuses Taiwan of human rights violations, saying conditions aboard the floating hotels are inhumane.
Under pressure, Taiwan has agreed to build placement centers for Chinese fishermen. The one in Suao is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.
To help the industry, the Cabinet's Council of Agriculture has offered a temporary subsidy to local fishing boats and cut red tape on hiring foreign fishermen to cope with the crisis.
Since Feb. 1, a total of 534 fishing boats have applied to hire an additional 1,182 foreign fishermen under the temporary measures, James Sha, deputy administrator of the Fishery Administration, told reporters.
"We have showed our goodwill and try to be as humane as possible, but we also need to keep national security in mind," Sha said.
Chen Chien-chung (
"Just like any family, it's inevitable that we have quarrels. But there is no problem we can't resolve if both sides calm down and talk," Chen said.
But the politics mean little to the men on the boats.
"I work here because I can't find anything else to do at home," said Huang Zhiguo, 29, who has worked for Taiwan fishing boats for 10 years. The money he earns supports his wife and their two toddlers.
"Of course I miss my family. I am just a seaman and I don't know anything about the ban. We go back when our government tells us to go back.
"But it's better to open up," he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater