As regional tensions continue to grow over overlapping claims in the South and East China Seas, China’s premier civilian maritime agency announced last week it would commission more than three dozen new vessels by next year.
Quoting Chinese government officials, the state-affiliated China Daily reported that to safeguard China’s huge maritime interests, the China Marine Surveillance (CMS) would add 36 ships to its fleet by next year. An unnamed CMS official said that seven vessels would have a displacement of 1,500 tonnes, 15 of 1,000 tonnes and 14 of 600 tonnes.
Construction of the 600-tonne cutters reportedly began on Tuesday in Weihai, Shandong Province.
The vessels will be distributed to 14 provinces, autonomous regions and cities along the Chinese coastline, it said.
Last week’s announcement seemed to indicate that the CMS was accelerating its acquisition of new vessels amid disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan. CMS Deputy Director Sun Shuxian (孫書賢) said in May last year that the 36 new ships would be acquired over the next five years as part of the 12th Five Year Plan approved by the State Council. Under the plan, the agency would also increase personnel by more than 1,000, to about 10,000, and China would “carry out regular sea patrols more frequently to strengthen law enforcement in Chinese-related waters to safeguard the country’s maritime rights in 2011.”
At the time of Sun’s announcement, the CMS counted a fleet of as many as 300 marine surveillance ships — including 30 with displacement of more than 1,000 tonnes — as well as six fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters.
Jane’s Defence Weekly reported last year that a growing number of larger CMS vessels were capable of carrying helicopters and were becoming more advanced in terms of electronics and maneuverability.
CMS ships were recently involved in China’s dispute with the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal (黃岩島) and are also used to enforce China’s claims to the Spratly (南沙群島) and Paracel islands (西沙群島) in the South China Sea, of which Taiwan is also a claimant. CMS patrol ships sailing close to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) have also sparked disputes with Japan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
RSS