The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday blasted Beijing after three Chinese vessels crossed the median line while Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was helping with search-and-rescue efforts for Chinese fishers.
The Chinese fishing boat Min Long Yu 60877 on Saturday sank in waters off Kinmen’s Dongding Island (東碇島), with three of its crew members missing.
The CGA at about 4am on Saturday received a report saying that the Chinese fishing boat sank after colliding with an unidentified vessel 6.6 nautical miles (12.2km) east of Dongding and 9 nautical miles off the prohibited waters of Taiwan proper.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
Four crew members were rescued, but one of them passed away despite emergency treatment, and three remain missing.
While Taiwan dispatched personnel from the CGA and the armed forces to support the search-and-rescue operations, China’s Fujian Maritime Safety Administration and Donghai Rescue Bureau performed “a patrol and law enforcement operation in the Taiwan Strait from Saturday to Sunday,” China’s Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
The operation involved “three public service ships” and “lasted 30.5 hours,” covering “a total distance of 413 nautical miles,” it said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
However, the CGA yesterday said that the three Chinese ships crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line for 3.2 nautical miles (5.9km) before they turned around and sailed toward China.
Taiwan actively helped in the search for the Chinese fishers in the spirit of humanitarianism and mutual assistance even though it did not involve Taiwanese vessels and it was beyond Taiwanese waters, but its “good deed was punished” by China, DPP caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) told a news conference yesterday.
China should control itself instead of using accidents to conduct “gray zone” activities to undermine Taiwan’s jurisdiction, DPP caucus deputy secretary-general Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said.
Separately, CGA officials said they are increasing efforts to prevent Chinese fishing boats from operating across borders, adding that only sporadic violations have been reported so far.
As of noon on Sunday, only the outlying Matsu and Kinmen islands have reported a few cross-border Chinese fishing activities, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch said in a press release.
All illegal fishing vessels have been expelled, the CGA said, adding that there were no mass-scale contraventions, despite public concerns after China’s three-and-a-half-month fishing moratorium concluded on Friday.
However, the CGA said it had deployed one ship, 19 boats, 29 vehicles, 74 motorcycles and 301 personnel over the past two days in response to potential offenses.
The CGA also dismissed earlier media reports saying that Chinese fishing boats were using fake automatic identification systems (AIS) to appear as Taiwanese vessels.
Citing a marine patrol operation on Saturday afternoon, the CGA reported identifying about 20 Chinese fishing boats approximately 20 nautical miles outside the restricted waters around Penghu County, where no Taiwanese vessels or related AIS signals were detected.
In other developments, Xiamen University’s Cross-Strait Institute of Urban Planning on Aug. 5 said in a now-deleted online post that Beijing should be ready to “take over” Taiwan, as US former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is very likely to return to the White House and would accelerate cross-strait “reunification.”
Commenting on the matter, Wu yesterday said that Taiwan cannot be taken over by any party, and that Taiwan and China are not subordinate to each other.
“We have a democratically elected president of our own, and we can be protected only by ourselves,” she said.
Hung said that China has never ceased its statements threatening to take Taiwan by force, which have only resulted in fomenting a deep distrust of Beijing in the international community.
China should prioritize addressing domestic economic problems and not use external issues to cover its inability to manage internal affairs and the public’s disappointment, he said.
Taiwan’s future can only be decided by the 24 million people in Taiwan, Hung said, adding that “the statement made by Xiamen University’s researchers was delusional.”
Additional reporting by CNA
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