The White House has said that it was closely monitoring the seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel by the Chinese coast guard this week, and called on both sides to communicate with each other.
The Penghu-registered boat Da Jin Man 88 with six crew was fishing for squid near Taiwan-administered Kinmen islands on Tuesday evening when the Chinese coast guard boarded it and forced it to divert it to a port in mainland China.
Penghu is, like Kinmen, an outlying island under Taiwan control but very close to mainland China.
Beijing said the Taiwanese boat was suspected of “illegal fishing activities” during an annual fishing moratorium that China has unilaterally announced.
The fishermen remained in China’s detention on Friday.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a media briefing in Washington on that the U.S. was “closely monitoring the incident, so we’re going to continue to do that.”
“But we encourage both sides to maintain open lines of communication so they can get to a resolution here,” she added.
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Taipei has asked Beijing to provide information through the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation on the crew, believed to be Taiwanese and Indonesian citizens.
The Straits Exchange Foundation under Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has been acting as an intermediary body in liaising with mainland China.
Calling for release
The Council repeated a call for the immediate release of the Da Jin Man 88 and the fishermen.
Taiwan’s coast guard and its Fisheries Agency called on Taiwanese fishermen to avoid waters also claimed by China during the fishing ban.
A former legislator from Penghu, Lin Ping-kun, was quoted by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency as saying that the incident simply involved the operation of a fishing boat, and China should not politicize it.
Kinmen is less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from China’s Fujian province.
Despite some tacit boundaries between the two sides, Chinese and Taiwanese fishermen often operate in the area without problems. Normally, if caught during fishing bans, fishermen are released after paying a fine.
But as tension rises between Beijing and the government of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te, the presence of Chinese law enforcement vessels around Kinmen has increased.
Edited by Taejun Kang.