Taiwan’s newest Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol vessel was damaged after being rammed by Chinese fishing boats near Kinmen County.
It was the second confrontation this month in which shots were fired to repel Chinese fishing boats.
Chen Chien-wen (陳建文), chief of the coast guard’s Offshore Flotilla No. 9 unit for Kinmen County, said that on Monday a dozen Chinese fishing boats entered Taiwan’s territorial waters near Little Kinmen (小金門), also known as Lieyu (烈嶼), close to the coast of China’s Fujian Province.
Photo: CNA
“We are happy to report that no coast guard personnel were hurt in the incident, but the new CGA patrol cutter, CP-1022, was rammed and had its hull damaged,” Chen said on Thursday.
The coast guard is to request that Chinese authorities launch an investigation to find the perpetrators and demand financial compensation from them, Chen said.
Touted as the newest addition to Taiwan’s coast guard, the offshore patrol cutter had just joined the Kinmen Island unit on Saturday last week.
On its first mission on Monday, the CP-1022 was accompanied by two other vessels — coast guard cutter PP-2006 and a patrol boat belonging to the Kinmen County Government’s Fisheries Research Institute — to patrol the waters around Kinmen to deter Chinese vessels from intruding in Taiwan’s waters, as well as illicit fishing and smuggling activities.
The three vessels were clearing illegal fishing nets off Little Kinmen when about a dozen Chinese fishing boats sped toward them, and their crew began throwing rocks and empty alcohol bottles at Taiwanese coast guard personnel, Chen said.
“Then several Chinese fishing boats concentrated their attack on the CP-1022 cutter, and took turns to ram it,” Chen said. “It became a very dangerous situation, so coast guard personnel decided to fire nonlethal ordnance to repel the Chinese boats.”
The non-lethal ordnance included six stun grenades and five bean-bag rounds, he said.
The CP-1022 cost NT$6.6 million (US$217,807), Chen said, adding that the damage to its hull and two outboard motors is estimated to cost at least NT$1.2 million to repair.
The patrol cutter is 11.86m long and 3.4m wide, and has a maximum speed of 45 knots and a range of 288 nautical miles, the CGA said.
It was the second time this month that a Chinese fishing fleet has intruded into Taiwan’s territorial waters near Kinmen.
On March 1, three coast guard cutters faced about 10 Chinese fishing boats near Little Kinmen, coast guard officials said.
In that incident, coast guard personnel fired pellets from their Benelli semiautomatic shotgun, officials said.
The coast guard vessels involved included a cutter (PP-3552), and two patrol boats (CP-1020 and CP-1018), which were responding to calls to clear up illegal netting, officials said.
‘CORNERED ENEMY’: China’s rise is threatening peace and stability, and the US would aim to restrict it with help from allies in the Asia-Pacific, Soong Hseik-wen said A draft bill on protecting Taiwan from invasion is likely to be passed by the US Congress, but it remains to be seen how US President Joe Biden’s administration would implement the act if it is passed, Taiwanese academics said on Sunday. US Senator Rick Scott and US Representative Guy Reschenthaler on Thursday reintroduced the proposed Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which was shelved in September last year due to the impending US presidential election. Arthur Ding (丁樹範), a professor at National Chengchi University’s College of International Affairs, and Soong Hseik-wen (宋學文), a professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Graduate Institute
CHANGING IT UP: With Bopomofo rarely used outside of Taiwan, the lawmaker said that Romanization would help the government in its internationalization efforts Tainan City Councilor Lee Chi-wei (李啟維) yesterday called for the use of Romanized spellings to make Taiwanese dialects and languages internationally recognizable. Speaking at a news conference in Tainan to mark International Mother Language Day, Lee said the use of zhuyin fuhao (注音符號, Mandarin phonetic symbols commonly known as Bopomofo) made it difficult to promote interest in, or recognition of, the nation’s dialects and languages, as the system is not commonly used outside of Taiwan. “The legislature has already passed the Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法), but under the current circumstances that act is like a candle in the wind,” he
CULTURAL CAPITAL: Taiwanese can act as ambassadors while teaching in the US, by exchanging views with their colleagues and friends, one Mandarin teacher said Most US students take Chinese classes because they want to know more about China, but Taiwanese teachers can make a change with more flexible pedagogic approaches and cultural exchanges, two local teachers said. Since the US last year canceled its Fulbright programs with China and Hong Kong, Taiwan has been granted a larger quota of scholarships, including the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Fulbright Program, which is funded by the US Department of State and comanaged in Taiwan by the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange. American Institute in Taiwan Director Brent Christensen last month encouraged Taiwan to fill the gap left by the closures
CHINESE AGGRESSION: The bill seeks to empower Taiwan by calling for a free-trade pact and authorizing the US president to use military force to defend Taiwan US Senator Rick Scott and US Representative Guy Reschenthaler on Thursday reintroduced in the US Congress the Taiwan invasion prevention act, aiming to boost Taiwan’s ability to resist Chinese aggression. While the bill was introduced last year by Scott and former US representative Ted Yoho, it was not listed onto the formal agenda in the run-up to the US presidential election in November last year. “We can’t sit back and let Communist China continue to threaten our democratic ally Taiwan,” Scott, a Republican, wrote on Twitter, urging US President Joe Biden and other Democractic senators to “take a stand for democracy” and
RSS