Taiwan pushes back at China patrols with Coast Guard trip for foreign lawmakers
Ben Blanchard and Yi-Chin Lee
TAIWAN COAST GUARD SHIP PP-10081, Taiwan Strait, July 9 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s government on Thursday pushed back against the Chinese Coast Guard, whose patrols have angered Taipei, by boarding a small group of foreign lawmakers on a Coast Guard ship around sensitive Taiwan-controlled islands near the Chinese coast.
China considers democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and does not recognize Taipei’s claims to sovereignty or maritime jurisdiction.
In 2024, the Chinese Coast Guard began regular patrols around Taiwan’s Kinmen islands, which face the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, after two Chinese citizens who escaped from the Taiwan Coast Guard died after entering restricted waters.
Since last month, the China Coast Guard had been patrolling the waters off Taiwan’s east coast in what it described as a “law enforcement” operation; It was a move that raised concerns in the US, UK, France and Germany and infuriated Taipei.
Seven foreign MPs and two Taiwanese members of parliament were on board Taiwan Coast Guard ship PP-10081 for a 90-minute tour of the waters around the Kinmen islands.
The trip, believed to be the first of its kind, underscores Taiwan’s efforts to draw international attention to the dispute at a time when China’s expanding naval patrols are testing Taiwan’s ability to defend its waters and causing alarm among some Western governments.
PP-10081 is one of several 100-ton patrol vessels based in Kinmen. She was not carrying any weapons on board and the crew was not visibly armed.
Encounters between Taiwanese and Chinese Coast Guard vessels around Kinmen are generally limited to radio communications and verbal warnings.
Britain’s Tom Tugendhat, a former security minister and harsh China critic, told Reuters on the boat that his presence there was a significant show of support for Taiwan.
“I’m in Taiwan. I’m in Taiwanese waters. This has nothing to do with Beijing. This has nothing to do with defending the international rules-based system that the Chinese government in Beijing claims to have signed up to,” he said.
He was joined by two British MPs as well as one MP each from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, India and New Zealand, which are members of the China Inter-Parliamentary Alliance. They were on a trip organized by Taiwan’s foreign ministry and the Ocean Affairs Council, which runs the Coast Guard.
Asked about the trip, China’s foreign ministry said Beijing was firmly against “sneaky visits” to Taiwan by lawmakers from countries with diplomatic ties with China.
“The so-called alliance you mentioned … has spread lies and rumors regarding China and has no credibility,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
KINMEN ON THE ‘FRONT LINE’
Tsai Chung-mou, deputy director of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Fleet Branch, told Reuters the government hoped the trip would help the international community get a better idea of Taiwan’s pressure from China.
“We hope that all countries that support freedom and democracy around the world can understand that Kinmen stands on the front line facing the Chinese Communist Party across the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
Although the Chinese Coast Guard ship was not visible during the tour, the Taiwan Coast Guard said that Chinese ships carried out one of their regular attacks in Kinmen waters the previous day.
The ship sailed around the north coast of Kinmen, giving lawmakers a clear view of China just a few kilometers (miles) away, including Xiamen’s new airport, which Taiwan said it was unable to provide security information to because it was so close to China’s Kinmen airport.
LESSONS FROM UKRAINE
Ukrainian lawmaker Yulia Sirko said there are many parallels between the situation Taiwan is facing with China and Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022.
“And those lessons consist, first of all, of this: If you want peace, start preparing for war. And unfortunately we didn’t do that at the right time, so that’s the number one lesson from the Ukrainian experience,” he said.
Taiwan had controlled Kinmen, along with the Matsu islands further up the coast of China, since the defeated government of the Republic of China fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.
While the Taiwan Coast Guard does not travel outside Taiwan-controlled waters around Kinmen, the Chinese Coast Guard regularly enters the same waters.
China’s last serious attempt to take Kinmen by force occurred in 1958, during what is often referred to as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. It was only in 1979 that China’s almost daily artillery fire on Kinmen and Matsu islands ended.
Today Kinmen is a popular tourist destination and there are regular ferry services to China, although Taiwan maintains a heavy military presence.
The Chinese government refuses to talk to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, saying he is a “separatist”. Lai said only the people of Taiwan can decide their future and that Beijing has no right to claim the island or represent it on the international stage.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ros Russell)
