Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday said the nation’s military installations on Taiping Island (太平島, Itu Aba Island) are vulnerable to intelligence gathering by a China-linked transport ship that has defied maritime regulations that require it to report its position when entering Taiwan’s near-shore waters.
Kuan told the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday that Hua Yun No. 12 entered Kaohsiung Harbor on Oct. 3, then headed up the coast to Greater Tainan’s Anping Port on Oct. 8.
“However, since Oct. 8, the ship had turned off its Automatic Identification System [AIS] to avoid reporting its location. This violates maritime regulations,” Kuan said, demanding that the government immediately expel the ship from the nation’s waters.
AIS is a tracking system used to identify and locate vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations and satellites.
“The transportation ministry did not track the ship’s passage and even allowed it to travel within the nation’s near-shore waters to break our maritime law at will,” she said.
“The government was unaware of the ship’s movement and unable to act. Its screws are all loose and it has fallen apart,” she added.
The ship was reportedly hired by East Pi Builds Co of Greater Kaohsiung, which secured a NT$3.37 billion (US$110 million) government project to build a wharf on Taiping Island.
Kuan initially raised the security issue on Oct. 10.
“At the time, transport ministry officials said Hua Yun No. 12 would leave for Russia on Oct. 11 and would not participate in the Taiping Island project,” she said. “This ship is still in Anping Port and has changed its departure to this afternoon. The port data log also records it as a Republic of China ship.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime and Port Bureau head Chi Wen-chong (祁文中) said that although the ship is Chinese-owned, it is contracted to a Hong Kong firm and registered in Cambodia.
“Therefore, we had problems with its proper identification. Turning off its AIS has violated our regulations, so we will blacklist this vessel in the future,” he said.
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