Taiwan says it drove away 16 Chinese vessels around its main island and Pratas

Taiwan’s coast guard said it confronted and drove away 16 Chinese vessels operating around Taiwan’s main island and the Pratas Islands on Sunday 18 October.

The coast guard said 12 Chinese coast guard and research ships and four fishing boats took part in what it called “simultaneous” maritime harassment and “hybrid warfare”, Al Jazeera and AFP reported. It accused Beijing of trying to “unilaterally alter the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and create a “false impression of jurisdiction”.

According to the coast guard’s statement, reported by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA), the research ship Tansuo 3 entered Taiwan’s restricted waters east of Hualien, and the research ship Beidiao 996 entered restricted waters southwest of Eluanbi before turning away after 12 radio warnings. Southwest of Kaohsiung, a Chinese research ship and fishing boat interfered with a Taiwanese fishing boat, the coast guard said. Near Pratas, two China coast guard ships were escorted out of restricted waters by about noon local time, it said.

Separately, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected two Chinese military aircraft, five navy ships and nine “official ships” around Taiwan in the 24 hours to 6am on Sunday. It said both aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

No response from Beijing to the coast guard’s statement had been reported as of 11pm GMT on Sunday.

Background

China claims Taiwan and Pratas, which Taiwan administers, as its territory; Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s claims. China deployed a record 244 coast guard, research and other ships around Taiwan’s main island in July, compared with 58 in the same month last year, Taiwanese official data cited by Al Jazeera show. On 1 October, Taiwan’s coast guard fired a water cannon at a Chinese fishing vessel near Pratas, Al Jazeera reported.