Taiwanese tourists on board a Kinmen cruise ship had a scare yesterday when it was intercepted by Chinese coast guards who forcefully boarded the vessel to inspect it.
The Sunrise, a tourism ferry that operates between Kinmen and Xiamen, China, was sailing around the waters around the islets of Dadan (大膽) and Erdan (二膽) — both of which are part of Kinmen County — yesterday afternoon when it encountered personnel from China’s Fujian Coast Guard Bureau.
China Coast Guard personnel forced their way on board and conducted an inspection for about 30 minutes before leaving, local media cited the tourists as saying.
Photo: screen grab from the China Ports Web site
The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch received a report about the intrusion and dispatched two vessels to the site and escorted the ferry back to Kinmen at about 5pm, local media reported.
The Sunrise had about 20 tourists on board. Several passengers told local media they were scared they would not be able to come back to Taiwan.
The CGA called on China to uphold peace and rationality and jointly maintain tranquility in the waters around Xiamen and Kinmen. At the same time, it also reminded Taiwanese operators to avoid going near Chinese waters when engaging in maritime-related activities.
The Maritime and Port Bureau, meanwhile, said the move undertaken by China was inconsistent with international norms.
The incident came as several Chinese patrol boats yesterday morning began operating off the coast of outlying Kinmen County, days after Beijing declared it did not recognize the waters as “prohibited” or “restricted.”
China Coast Guard vessels were navigating in waters to the east, southeast and south of the main island of Kinmen, with the smallest one being 15m long and the largest 92m, ship tracking data on the China Ports Web site showed.
At 11:15am, four ships were on duty, ranging in length from 24m to 92m.
The move cane after a speedboat from China’s Fujian Province capsized off the east coast of Kinmen on Wednesday last week while it was being pursued by Taiwanese authorities. Two of the four people on board died.
Taiwan’s coast guard had pursued the speedboat because it had entered restricted waters around Kinmen and refused an inspection.
China Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu (甘羽) on Sunday said the Fujian Coast Guard Bureau would enhance maritime law enforcement and carry out routine patrols in waters near Xiamen and Kinmen to “safeguard order in pertinent maritime regions and guarantee the safety of fishing crews’ lives and property.”
On Saturday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said “fishermen on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been operating in traditional fishing areas around Xiamen and Kinmen since ancient times.”
It rejected the existence of “prohibited” or “restricted” waters as defined by Taiwan.
Taiwan on Sunday said that under Taiwanese law, it has the right to expel or detain vessels that trespass into its “restricted” or “prohibited” waters.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that China’s refusal to acknowledge the “restricted” or “prohibited” waters around Taiwan showed that it was attempting to unilaterally invalidate the Republic of China’s sovereignty.
DPP Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said “China should make a return to past norms ... and not undermine cross-strait relations.”
Additional reporting by Hsieh Chun-lin
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS