If a Chinese military ship encroaches into restricted waters near Kinmen County, the situation would be dealt with according to existing contingency measures, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today when asked about frequent incursions by Chinese coast guard ships near the outlying county.
China Coast Guard vessels have increased activity in prohibited and restricted waters around Kinmen in an attempt to establish a “new normal” that refutes the prohibition, Koo told lawmakers at a committee hearing.
However, as the vessels are non-military, the armed forces have been coordinating with the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) to monitor their movements, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
If a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessel were to cross into prohibited territory, it would be dealt with as a contingency, he added.
Koo was responding to questions after the incursions after the CGA yesterday morning monitored four China Coast Guard vessels in restricted waters off Kinmen.
The intrusion was reported to the CGA's Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch some time after 5am, which dispatched three patrol boats to keep tabs on the vessels and gather evidence until they left the area at 8am, the branch said.
The four Chinese boats — with pennant numbers 14609, 14603, 14513 and 14605 — paired up and respectively entered the restricted area from east of Beiding Island (北碇) and south of Fuxing Islet (復興) for sorties that lasted about two hours, the branch said.
In the afternoon, the China Coast Guard claimed its actions were legal.
Referring to the intrusion as an effort to "further strengthen [China's] control of the waters," the China Coast Guard said via its official account in a WeChat message group that the move was aimed at ensuring residents' fishing rights as well as life and property security within China's territory, which it claimed "includes Taiwan."
The incident is viewed as a response to the deaths of two Chinese on Feb. 14, when a Chinese speedboat pursued by CGA personnel for illegally entering Taiwanese waters capsized near Kinmen, resulting in all four crew members being thrown into the water, two of whom died.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS