The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) today called on China to return the crew and explain the seizure of a Taiwanese fishing boat sailing in Chinese-controlled waters last night.
The Penghu-registered vessel was catching squid off Kinmen County when it was boarded by the China Coast Guard, CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) told a news conference.
The Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was fishing 23.7 nautical miles (43.9km) east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣) and 17.5 nautical miles from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
After receiving a notice at 8:14pm, the CGA said it sent three ships to rescue the vessel, Hsieh said.
One of the ships was intercepted by the Chinese Coast Guard vessels at 9:14pm, as the CGA called for the release of the Da Jin Man No. 88, he added.
However, it called off the mission to “avoid escalating tensions” after it detected the approach of four other China Coast Guard ships, he said.
It is currently the closed season for fishing in China.
There were two Taiwanese and three Indonesian nationals on the boat, Hsieh said, calling on China to release the crew according to set procedures, explain its reasoning and refrain from using political means to handle the situation.
As the incident occurred in Chinese-controlled waters, it was outside of the area regularly monitored by the CGA, Hsieh said, adding that fishing associations would be advised to avoid operating in Chinese waters during the fishing moratorium period.
The China Coast Guard also harassed Japanese fishing vessels near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) yesterday, Hsieh said, reminding Taiwanese sailors to remain vigilant and vowing to increase patrols.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS