The rugged, diverse terrain of the northeastern coast makes it the most beautiful coastline in the country, as well as a haven for smugglers and illegal Chinese immigrants.
Over the years, stirring cat-and-mouse encounters between coast guard forces and criminals have become part of the scenery of the region. And the recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has raised concern as to whether the region could prove to be a loophole in the nation's drive to contain the flu-like infectious illness.
Coast guard officers say the distinct geographic location between Fukueichiao and Santiaochiao in Taipei County has contributed to a thriving commodity and human smuggling trade across the Taiwan Strait.
According to a newly released report by the National Police Administration, 1,156 groups of illegal Chinese immigrants were seized in coastal regions around the island last year. Taipei County topped the list of popular landing areas, followed by Keelung, Pingtung, Ilan, Penghu, Taoyuan and Hualien in that order.
Chinese smugglers usually set sail from waters between the Taiwan-held frontline island of Matsu and the Chinese-controlled Nanri Islet and make straight for the waters off Fukueichiao, Santiaochiao and Pengjia Islet off the northern port city of Keelung.
"More specifically, Chinese fishing boats usually start their voyages from Fujian's Pingtan and make for target ports on Taiwan's northeastern coastline after reaching Pengjia Islet," a coast guard officer says, adding that the chain of bays and challenging capes along the coast provides perfect shelter for human smugglers and contraband traffickers.
The proximity of the area to cosmopolitan Taipei also contributes to the rampancy of smuggling.
Both merchandise -- ranging from farm produce and fishery products to alcohol and tobacco -- and human labor are in huge demand in the Greater Taipei market.
A-kuo (阿國), a fishing boat skipper from Keelung, admits that he ferries two or three shipments of contraband goods or illegal immigrants to Taiwan each month.
"How else could I make a living?" asks A-kuo, whose testimony attests to the prevalence of the smuggling trade in the region.
The 50-ish sailor said habitual traffickers like himself are quite familiar with the waterways in the area. "Coast guard officers are hardly a match for us, " he says complacently. "The only way we can get caught is if our ships experience mechanical failure or if someone leaks information about specific smuggling operations beforehand," he said.
A-kuo says he is caught on average only about once or twice out of every 20 to 30 smuggling voyages he makes per year.
According to him, at least seven smuggling rings are active in northeastern Taiwan. "They can easily operate 200 to 300 contraband shipments a year," he said.
Later, a veteran coast guard officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said cracking down on human and contraband smuggling requires not only wisdom but brute force as well.
At first, he said, many coast guard officers had little knowledge of the region's waters or of the myriad ways fishing boats could be fitted out with hidden compartments.
"Through years of hard work, we are now well aware of the main routes used by regular bootleggers and we also know how to search the boats properly," he said.
Of course, he said, smuggling rings are skilled in their trade. "They operate in groups and rely on teamwork. In many cases, they outnumber and outgun us. Smuggling rings now boast sophisticated division of labor systems and operate like multinational businesses," he said.
Using the human smuggling trade as an example, the official described how criminal rings first survey market demand and inform China's "snakeheads" -- the human smuggling ringleaders -- what kind of prostitutes are needed. The snakeheads then commission their cohorts to trick or abduct young Chinese women into working as bar girls or prostitutes in Taiwan. Lately, blue-eyed blondes from Russia have also joined the stowaway ranks because of market demand and dreams of making money.
The women are put up in hotels in Pingtan, Fujian Province, just opposite Taiwan. Once their number reaches a certain point, they are ferried aboard sampans to waters some 18.5km off the China's coast, where they are transferred to fishing boats owned by Taiwanese.
The boats sail east to the open sea off Pengjia Islet to avoid coast guard inspections. If the weather permits, high-speed sampans from Taiwan will rush to meet the larger boats and take the women ashore. Smuggling sampans usually sail in groups of four or five and land on the northeastern coast. If the weather is bad, the sailors also know how to make landings at safer points.
The landing operations are conducted with assistance from "road sweepers" both on sea and on shore. According to the official, human-smuggling rings tend to send about three fishing boats to serve as maritime sweepers to track activities of coast guard patrol ships. Each boat is responsible for monitoring an area within a 16km radius.
They maintain close contact with their ring's "command center" on shore and search for traces of customs cutters or coast guard patrol ships.
Once they spot a patrol ship, they use their radar to lock onto the patrol ship and immediately alert their command center, which then takes over the mission of tracking the patrol ship until it leaves their operating area.
Meanwhile, cars and motorcycles do the same monitoring work on shore to make sure the landing area is free of law enforcement forces, and taxis are used to transport the illegal Chinese immigrants to temporary safe houses.
One coast-guard squadron leader who has led his team on several successful intercepts said that although they are aware of the shipping routes used by the smugglers, their equipment often prevents them from catching the smaller, shallow-drafted sampans that can operate in shallower water than the coast guard vessels.
"All local fishermen understand undersea shoals and set nets are our ships' Achilles heel. So long as they flee to shallow areas with many nets, we are forced to stop the chase," he said.
As a matter of fact, both smuggling and anti-smuggling operations are almost equally risky, he said. The difference is that the smugglers can make big bucks, so they are often prepared to take dangerous risks, which makes life even more difficult for the coast guard officers.
It is very dangerous boarding suspicious ships in rough weather for inspections. "It's often a life-or-death moment, where a single slip can cost your life," the squadron leader said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift