Authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait yesterday said that a settlement had been reached regarding two Chinese men who died while being chased by a Coast Guard Administration (CGA) vessel in waters off Kinmen County five months ago.
“We will implement the agreement,” CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-Chin (謝慶欽) told reporters after a one-hour negotiation held at Golden Lake Hotel in Kinmen.
However, Hsieh said the CGA was “currently unable to disclose” the details of the deal, “out of respect for the families involved and [due to] the consensus reached in the cross-strait agreement.”
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
Quanzhou City Taiwan Affairs Office Deputy Director Li Zhaohui (李朝暉), the Chinese representative in the negotiations, confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
He said that he hoped the “relevant parties in Taiwan” would honor the agreement.
The incident occurred on Feb. 14 when coast guard personnel pursued a Chinese vessel that had entered prohibited waters off Kinmen.
The unnamed and unregistered Chinese boat fled after refusing a coast guard patrol vessel’s request to board it, resulting in a chase that ended when the boat collided with the CGA vessel and capsized, resulting in the deaths of two Chinese crew members, the CGA said.
The other two Chinese on the boat who survived returned to China on Feb. 20, while the bodies of the deceased and the boat remained in Kinmen for investigation.
The incident raised tensions around Kinmen, which is less than 10km from Xiamen, China.
Officials representing the two sides held several rounds of talks in February and March, but failed to reach an agreement, including how to compensate the families of the deceased.
After attending a public memorial service in Kinmen yesterday, CGA Director-General Chang Chung-lung (張忠龍) again apologized for the failure of coast guard personnel to record evidence during the incident and for the suffering endured by the families of the deceased.
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