A Chinese patrol and law enforcement operation in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday and Sunday last week was aimed at asserting China’s jurisdictional claims over the Strait, researchers said.
China’s Fujian Maritime Safety Administration and its East China Sea Rescue Bureau jointly patrolled an area spanning 765km for 30.5 hours, the Central News Agency (CNA) said on Tuesday, adding that the Chinese vessels “went as far as 2 nautical miles [3.7km] east of the central part of the Taiwan Strait,” and as far south as the Taiwan Shoal.
The inclusion of those two areas “might indirectly expand [China’s] area of jurisdiction to the Strait’s median line, an attempt to turn the Strait into ‘quasi-internal waters,’” Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said.
Association of Strategic Foresight researcher Chieh Chung (揭仲) said that Beijing sees Taiwan’s government as a local government with no authority over the Strait, and that it sought to “eliminate the gap in jurisdictional areas.”
Su’s belief that Beijing is using a “salami slicing” strategy to assert control over the Strait has already been proven by Chinese actions near Kinmen County, where China Coast Guard vessels now regularly enter the county’s restricted waters.
China has said it does not recognize the restricted waters and that it is acting within its authority to patrol near the county’s coast. Chinese fishing boats have entered the county’s waters — likely to gather information or test Taiwan’s response. Chinese commercial drones have also flown into Kinmen’s airspace. Chinese military aircraft and vessels have come successively closer to Penghu County and Taiwan proper during drills in recent years, and in the South China Sea, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has quietly occupied one feature after another, building on them and using the developments to justify militarization and China Coast Guard patrols. It has done this with impunity, and other countries in the region that are acting on their own sovereignty claims in the South China Sea are met with fierce resistance from an already entrenched China.
Taiwanese authorities must not allow China to normalize aggression and expansionism in the Taiwan Strait. When China crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line several times after then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August 2022, observers said that Beijing would normalize such actions, and it did. China now appears to be doing the same with its encroachments on Kinmen.
Unfortunately, Taiwan is in a precarious position of having to respond to these incursions while avoiding an escalation of tensions, which could potentially lead to a large-scale conflict. The tense nature of the situation was demonstrated in February when two Chinese fishers drowned after their boat intruded into waters off Kinmen and capsized while being pursued by the Coast Guard Administration. Taiwanese and Chinese authorities were at an impasse for several months before the wrecked vessel and bodies of the fishers were returned to China.
Yet Beijing has only increased its intrusions into the county’s waters since the incident occurred. In this high-stakes game of chess, China keeps moving its pieces gradually closer to Taiwan, while the latter is forced to temper its response to avoid giving Beijing a pretense for an attack or being seen by the international community as an aggressor.
However, Taiwan cannot afford to allow China to continue encroaching with impunity. Whether by employing underwater, above-water and airborne drones to patrol its waters and airspace, partnering with the US, Japan or another country to increase freedom of navigation activities in the Taiwan Strait, or some other solution, Taiwan must act urgently. If they have not done so already, defense officials should meet with their Japanese and US counterparts to discuss China’s incursions and how best to proceed.
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