- China has seized a Taiwanese fishing boat it said was encroaching on its waters.
- The Taiwanese coast guard dispatched its patrol boats to the scene, but withdrew to avoid any conflict.
- The incident highlights growing maritime tensions between China and Taiwan.
Taiwan is demanding the release of one of its fishing boats and its crew after Chinese authorities boarded and seized it on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
Taiwan’s coast guard said it had dispatched two patrol boats to the scene of the Dajinman 88 seizure, but the Chinese vessels blocked them and broadcast a message asking not to interfere.
After about an hour, the Taiwanese coast guard boats withdrew to avoid an escalation.
The boat was in the Taiwan Strait, off the coast of China and not far from the Taiwanese island of Kinmen. The boat was in Chinese waters fishing for squid during a period when China bans the activity, Reuters reported, citing officials.
Taiwan is now calling for the release of the sailors and the ship itself, with a senior coast guard official urging China not to use “political factors” to handle the situation, Reuters reported.
Rising maritime tensions
China and Taiwan have previously seized each other’s ships when they were suspected of trespassing, but the latest incident highlights growing maritime tensions between them.
China considers Taiwan its own territory and claims much of the South China Sea, which is a major shipping lane.
Last month, China also enacted a law allowing its coast guard to seize foreign vessels suspected of entering its waters without permission.
According to NPR, China has stepped up its patrols in the Taiwan Strait over the past two years in an effort to put pressure on the small island of Kinmen.
The island is located much closer to China (about 8 km) than to the Taiwanese mainland, which is 300 km to the southeast. It is one of several Taiwanese islands whose distance from the mainland makes them vulnerable to Chinese aggression, as Business Insider’s Benjamin Brimelow reported.
“At every step, the idea that there is no real buffer zone between Taiwan and China becomes more normalized,” Gregory Poling, a South China Sea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told NPR.
Provocations in the gray zone
Tensions escalated in February after two Chinese fishermen were killed off Kinmen as Taiwanese coastal authorities pursued them, The Guardian reported at the time.
Tuesday’s incident is the latest maritime skirmish in China, coming just days after a clash between the Chinese coast guard and a Philippine ship in the South China Sea.
Sari Arho Havrén, a research associate specializing in Chinese foreign relations at the Royal United Services Institute, called the actions one of China’s many “gray zone” maritime provocations, which threaten its adversaries but fall short of an act of war.
The incident is an example of China’s attempts to “wear down” other countries into recognizing its maritime claims, she told Business Insider.
