Chinese coastal guard ships have been over 60 times more than 60 times in the past year in the waters near the Kinmen Islands of Taiwan, which are near continental China, said the Taiwan Coast Guard.
The wave of incursions follows a February 2024 incident when a Chinese speed boat capsized after having escaped the inspection by the Taiwan coast guard. Two Chinese men died. The incident increased tensions between Taiwan and China.
Since then, the Chinese Coast Guard has set up what it describes as “law application” operations, but that Taiwan calls “gray zone” activities intended to undermine its control.
Last Thursday, four ships in the Chinese Coast Guard empowered in the waters south of Kinmen and were hunted, to return the next day, the Taiwanese Coast Guard said on Friday in a statement. He added that there had been 63 incursions since the February 2024 incident.
A Taiwanese analyst described this as an effort to undermine the Taiwanese sovereignty of the islands, which houses around 200,000 people.
“The deployment of coastal guard ships derives the legitimacy of local law enforcement forces and denies the jurisdiction and sovereignty of Taiwan,” said Lee Chun-Yee, associate researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute, a reflection group under the Ministry of Defense of Taiwan.
“He intends to consider the waters of the distant islands of Taiwan such as Dongsha and Kinmen as Chinese waters, so he has these jurisdictions. It is a coercion against us,” added Lee.
Dongsha, also known as Pratas, refers to an atoll held by Taiwanese in the southwest of Taiwan.
China has not yet publicly commented on Taiwanese allegations. Beijing considers Taiwan a province of escape which she threatens to grasp by force if necessary. Taiwan Auto-Hissé, which has a democratically elected government, considers itself a sovereign state.
Kinmen is an archipelago which is less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Chinese province of Fujian but more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) from the main island of Taiwan. Its residents have family and history on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and regularly rushes back and back in the Chinese city of Xiamen.
Taiwan describes as “prohibited waters” the territorial waters around Kinmen which extend halfway through the Chinese coast, or about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) in the north and northwest. The “limited waters” extend a little further, about 8 kilometers (5 miles), to the south.
But Chinese officials said they would not recognize these restrictions. The residents of the Kinmen told RFA that even before the February 2024 incident, Chinese fishing boats helped each other with fish which were once the reserve of the Kinmen fishing community.
Edited by Mat Pennington.