Taiwanese ships off Taiwan’s east coast should ignore any boarding and inspection demands by the China Coast Guard (CCG), a senior Coast Guard Administration (CGA) official said yesterday, adding that CGA vessels would intervene if required.
China sent CCG ships last month into the waters off the east coast for what it called a “special maritime traffic law-enforcement operation.”
Beijing said the operation was in response to an announcement by Japan and the Philippines that they would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries, which Beijing claims involved Chinese waters off Taiwan.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Taking lawmaker questions at the Legislative Yuan yesterday, CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said if an “incident” happened in those waters, ships should notify the CGA and “not respond to the so-called boarding inspections” by Chinese vessels.
“If the situation is urgent, coast guard vessels will sail between the two ships to separate them,” he added.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Hsieh said that if such a request was made to a foreign-registered ship inside Taiwan waters, then “in order to defend our national sovereignty and maintain order in our waters, we will intervene.”
“In our waters, China has no jurisdiction,” he added.
Neither Taiwan nor China reported any ship boarding requests during last month’s Chinese patrol.
Taiwan reported that CCG vessels “harassed” commercial shipping by demanding information about their point of origin and destination, and claiming jurisdiction.
Taipei says last month’s Chinese patrols were part of a broader pattern of harassment demonstrating Beijing’s shift in tactics from purely military activity to quasi-civilian “gray zone” operations.
In a report to lawmakers, the CGA said China is using a variety of vessels, including maritime survey ships, to conduct routine operations not only around Taiwan but also the Taiwan-controlled Pratas (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and Itu Aba (Taiping Island, 太平島) islands in the South China Sea.
This “reflects a pattern of gray-zone harassment that is multi-point, multi-form, and cross-regional across maritime areas,” it said.
“We will take all necessary measures to defend national sovereignty and maritime security, and to ensure the freedom and safety of vessel navigation,” it added.
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