The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday announced that it had dispatched ships to intercept Chinese dredging vessels operating in the nation’s territorial waters near Penghu and detained 10 crew members, who were transported to Kaohsiung.
A coast guard patrol discovered more than 20 dredging vessels in an area known as the Formosa Banks, 46 nautical miles (85km) southwest of Penghu County’s Cimei islet (七美) at about 5am on Wednesday.
The agency responded by dispatching two patrol boats, the 3,000-tonne Kaohsiung and the 500-tonne Penghu, along with two frigates, to intercept the Chinese vessels, while an airborne observation unit was used to monitor their location.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
The Kaohsiung and the Penghu cornered a 7,539-tonne Chinese vessel that was mining sand, and the Penghu deployed a water cannon against it, the coast guard said.
The two boats closed in on the intruder and 17 coast guard personnel were able to board it, the agency said.
The 10 member crew aboard the Chinese vessel, including the captain, were detained and it was escorted to Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港), the agency said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
The Chinese ship was estimated to have mined more than 400 tonnes of sand, which was returned from where it was taken, it said.
The Formosa Banks have an abundance of marine life, but in recent years Chinese dredging vessels have frequently mined sand in the area, marring the terrain and ecology, it said.
In other developments, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday approved a draft ocean white paper, which includes the goal of defending the nation’s maritime sovereignty.
The draft has as an overarching theme to build a “sustainable, secure and prosperous” ocean nation, and seeks to facilitate international collaborations to uphold regional security through law enforcement at sea, conserve the marine ecology, establish goals for the development of ocean industries, encourage people to get close to the sea to populate the concept of an ocean nation, and to support oceanic research, the Ocean Affairs Council said.
The Ocean Basic Act (海洋基本法), passed in November last year, required the government to promulgate an ocean policy white paper within a year, the council said.
The white paper was drafted in the spirit of the Executive Yuan’s “paying tribute to the mountains” policy, which opened 77 mountain trails that had previously been off limits to the public, in the hopes of encouraging people to “know, get close to and sail” the sea, Su said.
Every nation must explore the sea if it wants to be prosperous, he said.
Taiwan, which has more than 2,000km of shoreline, should make good use of its geography, he said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS