China’s Internet chatrooms were brimming with anger yesterday after a Chinese fishing boat captain died and another went missing following a collision with a South Korean coast guard ship on Saturday.
Beijing has so far refrained from official comment about the incident, in which a trawler collided with the South Korean vessel and capsized on Saturday in the Yellow Sea, according to South Korean officials and reports.
Most postings seen in Chinese Internet chatrooms blamed South Korea for seeking to provoke China and urged the Beijing government to punish the South, although some Web users called for calm.
Using an obscenity to describe South Koreans, one micro-blogger named Qiu Yang from Hunan Province accused Seoul of “flaunting powerful friends to bully others”.
“We must help the North Koreans to destroy the US-South Korean alliance,” Qiu wrote on popular Web portal sina.com.
Another Web user identified as Cai Xia from the northeast wrote: “The little Japanese didn’t dare to kill any of us in the ship collision near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台); how can the number two devil be so brash to do such a thing!”
“South Korea, the running dog of America, is seeking to provoke China — what are they thinking,” said another irate Internet user from Anhui Province.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to immediately comment on the incident when contacted by reporters.
Several state newspapers reported on the collision, many citing foreign media reports, and noted that South Korea had expressed regret over the dead and missing.
Four coast guard officers were injured as they tried to arrest the crew of the Chinese boat for illegal fishing in South Korean waters after the fishermen attacked the officers with metal bars, officials and reports said on Sunday.
Three fishermen have been held for questioning, a coastguard spokesman said yesterday.
“South Korea, again it is you bastards and this was not even in your fishing waters. You should mind your own ways. One day you will disappear from Asia,” a Chinese Web user from Sichuan Province said on sina.com.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s coast guard announced a new crackdown on illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea yesterday.
The three-day exercise involves 18 ships, two helicopters and about 200 personnel, a spokesman said.
“We are taking strong steps as illegal fishing by Chinese boats is rampant, despite our persistent crackdowns,” he said.
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
INVESTIGATION: The case is the latest instance of a DPP figure being implicated in an espionage network accused of allegedly leaking information to Chinese intelligence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Ho Jen-chieh (何仁傑) was detained and held incommunicado yesterday on suspicion of spying for China during his tenure as assistant to then-minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Ho was implicated during its investigation into alleged spying activities by former Presidential Office consultant Wu Shang-yu (吳尚雨). Prosecutors said there is reason to believe Ho breached the National Security Act (國家安全法) by leaking classified Ministry of Foreign Affairs information to Chinese intelligence. Following interrogation, prosecutors petitioned the Taipei District Court to detain Ho, citing concerns over potential collusion or tampering of evidence. The
‘COMPREHENSIVE PLAN’: Lin Chia-lung said that the government was ready to talk about a variety of issues, including investment in and purchases from the US The National Stabilization Fund (NSF) yesterday announced that it would step in to staunch stock market losses for the ninth time in the nation’s history. An NSF board meeting, originally scheduled for Monday next week, was moved to yesterday after stocks plummeted in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 32 percent tariffs on Taiwan on Wednesday last week. Board members voted to support the stock market with the NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) fund, with injections of funds to begin as soon as today. The NSF in 2000 injected NT$120 billion to stabilize stocks, the most ever. The lowest amount it
NEGOTIATIONS: Taiwan has good relations with Washington and the outlook for the negotiations looks promising, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo said Taiwan’s GDP growth this year is expected to decrease by 0.43 to 1.61 percentage points due to the effects of US tariffs, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei yesterday, citing a preliminary estimate by a private research institution. Taiwan’s economy would be significantly affected by the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs slapped by the US, which took effect yesterday, Liu said, adding that GDP growth could fall below 3 percent and potentially even dip below 2 percent to 1.53 percent this year. The council has commissioned another institution
RSS