The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew.
The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement.
Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee that the boat sank about 555m inside Taiwan’s “prohibited waters,” an area in which coast guard vessels are authorized to control the activity of foreign vessels.
Both sides were striving to locate the missing crew within the “golden rescue time” of 72 hours, Chou added.
Four boats from the Ninth (Kinmen) Maritime Patrol along with six helicopters and three vessels from China were conducting a joint search within a 37km radius of where the boat capsized, the CGA said.
The four ships were dispatched after a request for assistance was received from the China Maritime Safety Administration shortly after 6am, it said.
Taiwanese authorities have not publicly commented on the cause of the boat’s capsizing at press time last night.
Sources with knowledge of the matter said that two of the crewmembers remained missing.
The Ministry of National Defense said it had asked the air force’s Combat Command, the navy’s Fleet Command and the army’s Kinmen Defense Command to keep monitoring the situation.
Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said that the two sides were working closely to rescue the crew of the lost vessel and were maintaining good communication.
“China has shown respect for the proper procedures and we are facilitating this process out of humanitarian concerns,” she said. “China’s coast guard displayed goodwill by avoiding [our] waters and we urge the public to avoid forming misunderstandings.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said it requested the help of Taiwan’s Chinese Search and Rescue Association after the boat ran into a reef off Dongding Island at about 2am.
Chinese rescue teams had taken surviving crewmembers and the bodies of the dead back, the Mainland Affairs Council said, adding that no demand for compensation was filed on the families’ behalf.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) praised the rescue operation, saying previous efforts “have shown that China and Taiwan can work together in humanitarian aid.”
Chou also recalled several previous joint rescue efforts by Taiwanese and Chinese authorities.
“In the past three years, we have had 17 cases like this where they [China] asked us for support, and we rescued 119 people,” he said.
Such cooperation between the two sides is common and close, but Taiwan has always adopted a policy of “rescue those in distress, and expel or ban those who violate the law,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) wrote on Facebook.
However, politicizing normal responses to illegal movement by unregistered and unflagged boats in a nation’s territorial waters should be condemned, he added.
From July 2016 to November last year, Taiwan penalized nearly 20 Chinese dredgers, confiscated 16 boats and more than 25,000 tonnes of illegally dredged sand, and chased away more than 9,100 boats from its waters, CGA data showed.
Separately, Kuan on Wednesday apologized for the CGA’s shortcomings in collecting evidence during a fatal boat chase off Kinmen last month, which left two Chinese nationals dead.
Amid public criticism of the council’s handling of the case on Feb. 14, Kuan told lawmakers that inadequate evidence collection had resulted in public concern and emotional distress for the affected families.
The council has directed the CGA to establish a committee to conduct a thorough review aimed at enhancing duty management, equipment installation and evidence collection, among others, she said.
Additional reporting by Hung Ting-hung and AFP
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
EASING ANXIETY: The new guide includes a section encouraging people to discuss the threat of war with their children and teach them how to recognize disinformation The Ministry of National Defense’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency yesterday released its updated civil defense handbook, which defines the types of potential military aggression by an “enemy state” and self-protection tips in such scenarios. The agency has released three editions of the handbook since 2022, covering information from the preparation of go-bags to survival tips during natural disasters and war. Compared with the previous edition, released in 2023, the latest version has a clearer focus on wartime scenarios. It includes a section outlining six types of potential military threats Taiwan could face, including destruction of critical infrastructure and most undersea cables, resulting in
RSS