An environmental protection group yesterday said that Kinmen County could become overly dependent on China after the county signed a landmark water agreement with Chinese authorities on Monday.
Purchasing water from China means that Beijing would have increased control over the region, Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) said, adding that Beijing could use the deal to coerce Kinmen into submitting to its demands by severing water supplies or increasing prices.
She urged the Kinmen County Government to build seawater desalination plants, preserve its groundwater reserves and carry out regular reservoir dredging work so that the county can retain a degree of water sovereignty in the event of a worst-case scenario.
Under Monday’s agreement, China is to deliver 15,000 tonnes of water per day to Kinmen, with the amount gradually increasing over time to 34,000 tonnes per day starting from the 10th year of the arrangement.
The pact also poses a risk to Kinmen’s environment and quality of life, Nien said, citing concerns over the construction of an underwater pipeline connecting China’s Fujian Province and Kinmen, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.
The quality of the water from China is also questionable, as water in Chinese reservoirs often contains high concentrations of impurities, she said.
“People in many Chinese provinces do not bother to boil tap water. Instead they use water dispensers and buy drinking water from private firms,” she said.
Citing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Ying-hsiung’s (楊應雄) pledge to push for Kinmen to be allowed to purchase electricity from China as well, Nien said that if utilities on Kinmen come under Beijing’s control, it would bring Kinmen closer to China and compromise its status as Taiwan’s military outpost.
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard
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