The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said that a mechanism has been established to facilitate interdepartmental efforts to allow the detention of ships suspected of engaging in acts of sabotage in coastal waters.
The introduction of the new procedure followed an incident at sea earlier this month, when Chunghwa Telecom reported that one of its major undersea fiberoptic cables had allegedly been damaged by a vessel off Keelung.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
At a legislative hearing yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chu-yin (林楚茵) said that the Cameroon-flagged Shunxing-39 cargo ship, which is Chinese-owned, had not been detained and had sailed to Busan, South Korea.
Consequently, Taiwan now has to use diplomatic channels and ask for South Korea’s assistance in investigating the Jan. 3 incident, Lin said.
During the hearing, Lin asked CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) why the coast guard had not been able to detain the vessel in Keelung Harbor.
Hsieh said that the ship’s destination was Busan, and it did not have the necessary documents for docking in Keelung Harbor.
Furthermore, under the previous procedure, the CGA could only detain a foreign vessel if it was caught in the act of breaking the law, Hsieh said.
In the case of the damaged cable, CGA vessels arrived on the scene four hours after the company filed the report, he added.
Following the incident, an interdepartmental meeting was called, during which agencies agreed on a mechanism to deal with suspected acts of sabotage at sea, Hsieh said.
Under the new mechanism, prosecutors would launch a probe upon receiving information about suspected acts of sabotage on undersea cables, and notify the CGA and the Maritime and Port Bureau of the incident, Hsieh said.
The CGA and the bureau would then bring the suspected vessel back to a port and detain it, Hsieh said.
National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) at the hearing said that the bureau would work with the CGA to improve the reporting of ships engaged in “suspicious” activities in waters around Taiwan, especially of vessels that have a “flag of convenience,” or vessels that are registered in a country other than their own.
Furthermore, the National Security Bureau would help CGA personnel deal with different “gray zone” activities done by Chinese ships, such as by providing information through lectures, Tsai said.
Before attending the hearing, Tsai told reporters that his agency had made a request to Taiwan’s international allies for an exchange of information on China’s “gray zone” activities around Taiwan.
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