President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday said that Taiwan’s efforts to build its own military vessels are intended to ensure sustainable maritime development and an ability to participate in maritime rescue missions, rather than as a show of force.
“As a maritime nation, we particularly need to invest resources in patrolling and defending coastal borders,” Tsai said at Kaohsiung Harbor at the commissioning of the Coast Guard Administration’s new 1,000-tonne patrol vessels, the Taitung CG-133 (台東艦) and the Pingtung CG-135 (屏東艦).
“Recently, disputes have frequently arisen in waters surrounding our nation, and the coast guard has taken up the job of protecting Taiwanese fishermen, as well as defending the nation’s maritime sovereignty,” she said.
Photo: CNA
The newly commissioned vessels were built to improve the coast guard’s capabilities, and the government will continue supporting the program to build coast guard vessels at home, the president said.
Tsai said that future upgrades are to include the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems on all coast guard vessels.
The coast guard needs professional staff trained by the armed forces and police so that it can defend the nation during a war and work with police during peacetime, she added.
The coast guard said the two new vessels, which are both 87.6m long and have a 12.8m beam, are equipped with two engines and have a top speed of 24 knots.
They have a 40mm gun, a 20mm autocannon, two T75 light machine guns, a water cannon that has a maximum range of 120m, and a helicopter deck, the coast guard said.
The Taitung and the Pingtung, which have ranges of 6,000 nautical miles (11,112km), increase the number of vessels in the coast guard fleet to 156, including 24 that are 500 tonnes or more, the agency said.
The coast guard already has two vessels of the same type in service — the Miaoli CG-131 (苗栗艦) and the Taoyuan CG-132 (桃園艦) — which were launched in 2014 and last year, respectively. However, both ships are not equipped with a 40-mm gun.
Apart from patrolling the coast, cracking down on smugglers, conducting rescue missions and protecting maritime ecosystems, the coast guard is also responsible for the security of Taiwan-controlled islands in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea.
Following the ceremony, the two vessels were opened to visitors, who were able to board the ships and see an exhibition about coast guard missions.
The vessels will be grouped with coast guard units in eastern and southern Taiwan, respectively.
The Taitung, which arrived at its base in the Port of Hualien in May, has already been sent to patrol the waters around Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the South China Sea.
The vessel was dispatched to assert Taiwan’s right to an exclusive economic zone around the island in mid-July, after an international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled on July 12 that none of the Spratly Islands, including Itu Aba, could be considered “islands” and were therefore not entitled to a 200-nautical-mile economic zone.
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