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.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS