On Wednesday afternoon last week, a Chinese speedboat left Weitou in China’s Fujian Province, crossing the maritime border into Kinmen County, where those aboard began to fish in the waters off Beiding Islet (北碇島). When the coast guard dispatched a patrol boat for an inspection, the speedboat fled, leading to a high-speed chase.
Unfortunately, the fleeing vessel capsized, sending four Chinese into the water, and two of them were unable to be resuscitated upon being sent to hospital.
Despite the coast guard personnel acting quickly to save them from drowning, this incident quickly touched a sensitive cross-strait political nerve.
However, as the incident involved Chinese citizens and Taiwanese law enforcement units without leading to a naval confrontation, there is little likelihood of this escalating into a conflict in the short term.
In 2022, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said in a public statement that “the waters of the Taiwan Strait extend from both coasts of the strait and meet at the median line. In order, they are China’s internal waters, territorial waters, contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone.”
His statement has become an important part of discourse for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy in the Taiwan Strait.
Since Wang’s statement, the CCP has been carrying out displays of jurisdictional conduct in an attempt to show the international community that it does not affirm the status of Taipei’s exercise of jurisdiction over its own respective maritime territory in the Taiwan Strait.
Over the past few years, China’s coast guard has increased the frequency of its activities in the Taiwan Strait, as well as in neighboring waters.
It has gradually expanded its activities to the waters off Taiwan’s east and southwest coasts.
These activities show the gradual consolidation of China’s claim of sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait, and its attempt to salami slice away Taiwan’s sovereignty and rights.
The CCP could use the speedboat accident to bolster its claim to sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait. For example, it could attempt to refuse searches or patrols by the Taiwanese coast guard in the name of protecting Chinese fisheries, refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Taipei’s investigations and searches when patrol vessels are dispatched.
Apart from this, the CCP could also use other means to tighten its grip over the Taiwan Strait, such as demanding the release of arrested Chinese citizens or by mobilizing personnel to exert pressure on Taiwanese.
Although the CCP’s goal in using maritime militia masquerading as fishers for harassment is to establish a favorable “status quo” that further supports its doctrine, if an accident occurs under a high-stakes situation, leading to damaged vessels or loss of life or limb, the authorities on both sides of the Strait could rapidly escalate the matter. As such, Taiwan needs to be prudent in its responses to avoid such a situation spiraling out of control.
The CCP’s use of lawfare in the Taiwan Strait is not a merely verbalized thing — it is a series of realized “gray zone” activities.
Last week’s accident could become an opportunity for the CCP to keep pushing its territorial claims.
Taipei must remain vigilant in its response, and defend its sovereignty and rights in the Taiwan Strait.
Gong Lin-dong is a research fellow who focuses on the Chinese Communist Party.
Translated by Tim Smith
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017