Chinese coast guard vessels intruded more than 60 times in the past year in waters near Taiwan-held Kinmen islands, which lie close to mainland China, Taiwan’s coast guard says.
The spate of incursions follows a February 2024 incident when a Chinese speedboat capsized after evading inspection by Taiwan’s coast guard. Two Chinese men died. The incident raised tensions between Taiwan and China.
Since then, China’s coast guard has mounted what it describes as “law enforcement” operations, but which Taiwan calls “grey zone” activities intended to undermine its control.
Last Thursday, four Chinese coast guard ships encroached into waters south of Kinmen and were driven away, only to return the following day, the Taiwanese coast guard said in a statement Friday. It added that there had been 63 incursions since the February 2024 incident.
A Taiwanese analyst described that as an effort to undermine Taiwanese sovereignty of the islands, which are home to about 200,000 people.
“The deployment of coast guard ships denies the legitimacy of local law enforcement and denies Taiwan’s jurisdiction and sovereignty,” said Lee Chun-yee, an associate researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute, a think tank under Taiwan’s defense ministry.
“It intends to regard the waters of Taiwan’s outlying islands such as Dongsha and Kinmen as Chinese waters, so it has these jurisdictions. This is coercion against us,” Lee added.
Dongsha, also known as Pratas, refers to a Taiwanese-held atoll southwest of Taiwan.
China has yet to comment publicly on the Taiwanese allegations. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province which it threatens to seize by force if necessary. Self-ruled Taiwan, which has a democratically elected government, views itself as a sovereign state.
Kinmen is an archipelago that lies less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from China’s Fujian province but more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Taiwan’s main island. Its residents have family and history on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and shuttle regularly by ferry back and forth to the Chinese city of Xiamen.
Taiwan describes as “prohibited waters” the territorial waters around Kinmen that extend about halfway to the Chinese coast, or roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the north and northwest. “Restricted waters” extend a little further, about 8 kilometers (5 miles), to the south.
But Chinese officials have said they will not recognize those restrictions. Locals on Kinmen have told RFA that even before the February 2024 incident, Chinese fishing boats were helping themselves to fish that were once the preserve of Kinmen’s fishing community.
Edited by Mat Pennington.