China has claimed to have seized a Chinese ship carrying five crew members for illegally fishing in its regional waters on Tuesday evening.
The ship, two Chinese men, and three Indonesians are being held in Weitou, a port in the south-eastern, and Taiwan has requested that China relieve them.
About 2. 8 coastal miles off Taiwan’s beach, Chinese leaders have confirmed to the BBC that the vessel was seize inside its territorial waters. It was operational during the summertime fish ban in place every year from May through August in China.
” The fish vehicle violated the fish ban laws and trawled improperly within the… prohibited area”, Liu Dejun, director of the China Coast Guard, said.
He also alleged that it “used the bad fishing equipment” and “damaged marine fishery resources.” Taiwan is yet to listen to these remarks.
In the disputed 110-mile sea that separates China and Taiwan, for fistfights have become frequent.
China claims that Taiwan has self-ruled as its own and that the sea is its distinctive financial center, but other nations that traverse these waters, for as Japan and the United States, do not. In recent years, China’s defense has increased its military presence in Taiwan.
Foreign authrities have seized and detained 17 Taiwan- registered arteries since 2003 for hunting during the summertime- time restrictions, Taipei’s data shows. This year alone, Taiwan has detained five of these vessels.
The captain reportedly called Taiwanese authorities to report that two Chinese coast guard officers had boarded and boarded the fishing boat at 20: 04 local time ( 12: 04 GMT ).
Three Japanese coast guard boats were dispatched to rescue the boat, which caused a small but anxious standoff. However, they claimed they did not pursue them because four additional Taiwanese coast guard ships were approaching and that they did not want to cause further hostilities.
The Chinese and the Chinese, according to the Chinese beach guard, used loudspeakers to require the transfer of the hunting boat, and the Chinese similarly asked the other side to refrain from irrational behavior.
” There were 40 to 50 fish vessels out at sea at the time. I’m not sure why he took advantage of my boat,” the hunting vessel’s owner told local media. They would simply fight you away if you got too close, they said,” This always happened before.”
Beijing and Taipei used to be more adaptable about each other’s fishing fleets, particularly around Taiwan’s off- sea islands, which lie really close to the Taiwanese coast.
However, Taiwan has recently increased the strictness of its own waters in response to what it claims is a significant increase in hunting by fishermen from China’s southern Fujian province.
Two Chinese fishermen perished in February after their motorboat flipped while attempting to beat a Japanese coast guard vessel. Since then, China’s coast guard has turned more confrontational in patrolling around Taiwan’s neighboring islands.
China has also become more intense in putting its maritime says into practice throughout the area. Its shoreline watch has become the most visbile shoulder of Beijing’s large naval operation.
The Philippines ‘ dispute over a number of islands in the South China Sea has attracted the most attention and raised fears for Washington.
The Taiwanese coast guard has increased its operations in the East China Sea in response to a group of islands that are under Chinese control, known as the Senkaku and the Diaoyu, respectively.
Foreign coast guard ships evacuated Japanese fishing boats that were close to the island last month, in an unprecedented move. It caused a small stand-off between Japanese and Chinese coast guard ships.
This assertive Chinese behavior comes just days after Beijing implemented fresh sea laws giving its coast guard personnel broad authority to search, board, and prosecute vessels in all China claims waters.
Foreign citizens who are deemed to have broken “exit and access rules” may be held without cost for up to 60 days under the new rules.
The new rules were reportedly intended to stop Filipino fishing from entering disputed islands in the South China Sea.
However, sea experts have made a quick point that China has wide, ill defined claims spread across thousands of square kilometers of sea that are disputed by all of its relatives, including those from South Korea and Indonesia.