The Taiwanese coast guard said on Tuesday that Chinese forces seized a fishing boat operating near Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Islands and forced it to dock at a Chinese port.
The Taiwanese coast guard attempted to rescue the fishing boat but backed off to defuse escalating tensions as Chinese forces massed in the area.
Hsieh Ching-chin, deputy director general of the Taiwanese coast guard, said the fishing vessel Da Jin Man 88 was detained while fishing for squid northeast of Kinmen. Hsieh confirmed that the boat was outside of Taiwan’s territorial waters when Chinese forces intercepted it.
The Chinese coast guard said forces from its Fujian branch seized the Da Jin Man 88 for “alleged illegal fishing activities” and “illegal trawling operations.”
According to a Chinese coast guard spokesman, the fishermen were also charged with using fishing nets that had mesh sizes smaller than China’s minimum regulations, which means their nets were allegedly “damaging marine fishery resources and the ecological environment.”
Furthermore, Chinese officials said the boat violated a summertime ban on fishing in the relevant area.
The Taiwanese coast guard said its ships broadcast a request to Chinese forces to release the fishing boat and its crew into its custody, but the Chinese ships ignored the request and told the Taiwanese vessels to back away. Taiwan’s coast guard did so, not wishing to escalate the situation any further.
Chinese officials on Tuesday criticized the Taiwanese coast guard for attempting to “interfere” with law enforcement and saying Chinese forces “drove them away.”
In his press conference on Tuesday, Hsieh noted that the area between the Kinmen Islands and the Chinese coast is narrow, and it has not been uncommon for both Taiwanese and Chinese fishermen to wander over the informal border. Until now, such incidents have not been addressed by seizing the offending ships, and fishermen who violate China’s seasonal bans on fishing have usually been released after paying a fine.
Hsieh asked China to explain why it seized the Da Jin Man 88 and asked “the mainland side” not to “use political factors to handle this situation.”
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it has also become involved in the situation because most of the fishing boat’s six-man crew was Indonesian migrants.
Tensions between China and Taiwan have been rising in general since the election of Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te in January — a candidate whom Beijing denounced as a dangerous separatist.
Another incident that likely has a direct bearing on China’s handling of the Taiwanese fishing boat occurred in February when a Taiwanese patrol craft chased a Chinese fishing boat out of Taiwan’s waters. The Chinese boat capsized, drowning two Chinese fishermen. China substantially increased its naval presence in the waters near Kinmen afterward.
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