Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) will conduct a joint maritime rescue drill this week with its Chinese counterpart, the first time the coastal patrol agencies on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are to hold joint marine exercises.
According to the CGA, it will hold the drill with China’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center in waters off southeastern China, between Taiwan’s Kinmen and the Chinese city of Xiamen.
Boats and aircraft from Taiwan and China will simulate the collision of two ships on the Kinmen-Xiamen route — one of the busiest areas in the Taiwan Strait — and try to save “passengers” that fall into the sea, the CGA said.
The CGA will send nine patrol boats, including a 500-tonne patrol vessel, and helicopters to Kinmen for the joint drill.
To avoid unnecessary political disputes, the two sides have decided that all participating vessels and rescue teams will only carry flags that symbolize the joint drill, CGA officials said.
They underlined that the drill was being held for the sole purpose of preparing for possible accidents in the Taiwan Strait.
Commenting on the landmark cross-strait marine drill, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said he supports the way Taiwan and China have defined marine rescue as “a humanitarian practice.”
“We must recognize China’s conduct” to help save Taiwanese fishing boats from difficulties while operating in waters in the Taiwan Strait, he said.
However, Huang also questioned whether Chinese ships should be permitted to sail across the median line of the strait into Taiwan’s waters in the future if a marine accident happens on Taiwan’s side of the strait.
“It needs to be discussed,” he said.
On Thursday, former deputy defense minister Lin Chong-pin (林中斌) said that although the participants in the rescue drill are not from the military, he sees the event as a “positive signal” in the two sides’ pursuit of mutual military trust.
Lin, now a professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, saw the upcoming marine drill as a sign that Taiwan and China have finally begun to pay attention to the long-term need for a joint capability in handling marine accidents in the Taiwan Strait.
The drill may be the first between the two central government’s coast guards, but joint exercises have taken place at the local level.
In October 2008, the Kinmen County Government dispatched ships and rescue personnel to conduct a joint marine rescue drill with a similar patrol squad from Xiamen.
Kinmen County Commissioner Li Wo-shi (李沃士) in June urged the two sides to establish a cross-strait marine accident rescue mechanism as soon as possible because of the fast pace at which transport services between Kinmen and Xiamen are growing.
Lee said 1.28 million traveled between the two destinations by boat last year, adding the volume is expected to rise this year.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS