Coast guard patrols are to focus more on the nation’s outlying islands amid threats posed by Chinese “maritime militias,” the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said on Thursday.
It has reassigned ships and updated procedures for reacting to threats, the agency said.
The remarks came as the Ocean Affairs Council delivered a report on the enforcement of maritime law.
Photo: CNA
There have been reports that Chinese fishing boats operating on the Taiwanese side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line often carry plainclothes Chinese coast guard officers, CGA Deputy Director-General Hsu Ching-chih (許靜芝) said, calling the deployment an example of China’s “gray zone” warfare.
The threat posed by fishing boats deployed as part of China’s “maritime militia” is controllable, Hsu said, adding that no median line crossings have been reported after Beijing’s military exercises in August.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that Thursday’s report showed that Taiwan had expelled 6,000 Chinese vessels and impounded 230 Chinese ships over the past five years.
Amendments to the Act on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf of the Republic of China (中華民國專屬經濟海域及大陸礁層法) and the Sand and Gravel Excavation Act (土石採取法) have significantly reduced Chinese efforts to illegally dredge sand in Taiwanese waters, Su said.
Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said that 2020 marked the height of Taiwan’s efforts to expel Chinese ships illegally dredging sand in the nation’s waters, with 3,422 such incidents.
After the amendments and the increased patrols, Taiwan expelled 339 ships last year, Lo said, adding that the number had fallen to 89 such incidents in the first nine months of this year.
Before the amendments, Chinese ships illegally dredging sand in the nation’s waters were often fined and let go, giving their crews the impression that the profits outweighed the costs, Lo said.
Separately, Hsu said that an incident involving a research vessel operated by National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography and a Japanese coast guard ship east of Taiwan proper was not a “standoff.”
The nation’s coast guard escorted the ship while it was conducting research near where Taiwanese and Japanese territorial claims overlap and was aware of the vessel’s whereabouts at all times during its mission, Hsu said.
Research ships must apply with the Ocean Affairs Council before conducting research in the area, Hsu added.
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