President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday said that Taiwan’s efforts to build its own military vessels are intended to ensure sustainable maritime development and an ability to participate in maritime rescue missions, rather than as a show of force.
“As a maritime nation, we particularly need to invest resources in patrolling and defending coastal borders,” Tsai said at Kaohsiung Harbor at the commissioning of the Coast Guard Administration’s new 1,000-tonne patrol vessels, the Taitung CG-133 (台東艦) and the Pingtung CG-135 (屏東艦).
“Recently, disputes have frequently arisen in waters surrounding our nation, and the coast guard has taken up the job of protecting Taiwanese fishermen, as well as defending the nation’s maritime sovereignty,” she said.
Photo: CNA
The newly commissioned vessels were built to improve the coast guard’s capabilities, and the government will continue supporting the program to build coast guard vessels at home, the president said.
Tsai said that future upgrades are to include the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems on all coast guard vessels.
The coast guard needs professional staff trained by the armed forces and police so that it can defend the nation during a war and work with police during peacetime, she added.
The coast guard said the two new vessels, which are both 87.6m long and have a 12.8m beam, are equipped with two engines and have a top speed of 24 knots.
They have a 40mm gun, a 20mm autocannon, two T75 light machine guns, a water cannon that has a maximum range of 120m, and a helicopter deck, the coast guard said.
The Taitung and the Pingtung, which have ranges of 6,000 nautical miles (11,112km), increase the number of vessels in the coast guard fleet to 156, including 24 that are 500 tonnes or more, the agency said.
The coast guard already has two vessels of the same type in service — the Miaoli CG-131 (苗栗艦) and the Taoyuan CG-132 (桃園艦) — which were launched in 2014 and last year, respectively. However, both ships are not equipped with a 40-mm gun.
Apart from patrolling the coast, cracking down on smugglers, conducting rescue missions and protecting maritime ecosystems, the coast guard is also responsible for the security of Taiwan-controlled islands in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea.
Following the ceremony, the two vessels were opened to visitors, who were able to board the ships and see an exhibition about coast guard missions.
The vessels will be grouped with coast guard units in eastern and southern Taiwan, respectively.
The Taitung, which arrived at its base in the Port of Hualien in May, has already been sent to patrol the waters around Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the South China Sea.
The vessel was dispatched to assert Taiwan’s right to an exclusive economic zone around the island in mid-July, after an international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled on July 12 that none of the Spratly Islands, including Itu Aba, could be considered “islands” and were therefore not entitled to a 200-nautical-mile economic zone.
Unlike most countries, Taiwan cannot use its country’s own name to compete in the Olympic Games or other major international sports events. Instead, it participates under the name “Chinese Taipei,” a name that causes confusion and sparks curiosity among many people, including an American director who explored the topic in his new documentary. Garret Clarke, the director of the 20-minute documentary What’s in a Name? A Chinese Taipei Story, said in an recent media interview said that he was motivated to make the documentary because he finds the name “Chinese Taipei” to be “weird.” The dispute that eventually created the name dates back
CASUALTIES: The typhoon has left seven people dead, run cargo ships aground and caused landslides that have severed roads and left people stranded, officials said Typhoon Gaemi, which made landfall in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳) on Thursday, has left seven dead, one missing and 785 injured since Wednesday, the Central Emergency Operations Center said. The casualties announced by the center as of 2pm yesterday included two men who died in separate incidents, a 65-year-old in Tainan and a 75-year-old in Yunlin County. The man in Tainan was taken to hospital after he had fallen doing home repair work, while the man in Yunlin, who was driving a scooter on his way home, was taken to hospital after he was hit by falling tree branches and crashed,
‘LAWFARE’: The China Coast Guard’s boat seizure in February should be seen in the context of the CCP’s legal warfare tactics against Taiwan, experts say Taiwanese fisher Chen Zhi-rong says that for decades it was common to sail in waters that skirted the Chinese coastline. Since Beijing seized a boat and its crew for the first time in 17 years for contravening a fishing ban — and continues to detain them — all that has changed. The China Coast Guard is now “constantly” patrolling east of the median line in the Taiwan Strait, said Chen, referring to the US-drawn boundary that had for decades served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides. “Fishing boats probably won’t go near Kinmen and the Chinese coast in the near
WIND POWER: It is necessary to consider Taiwan’s geopolitical situation and energy security when evaluating its local content criteria, an official said Taiwan said it would continue talks with the EU following the bloc’s request for dispute settlement consultations regarding the country’s offshore wind policy. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade issued a statement on Friday announcing that the EU has officially requested dispute settlement consultations at the WTO concerning Taiwan’s requirement that wind power developers use a certain percentage of locally manufactured components in their projects. “In the view of the EU, Taiwan’s local content eligibility and award criteria in energy capacity allocation auctions for offshore wind farms are inconsistent with its WTO commitment to not discriminate against imported goods and services,”