China is increasing its coast guard activity around a group of Taiwan-controlled islands just off the Chinese mainland, dispatching multi-agency ships to patrol once-restricted waters.
Footage released on Sunday by the Chinese coast guard showed what it called a "law enforcement drill" in the waters between the Chinese port city of Xiamen and Kinmen, an archipelago just six miles away, administered by Taiwan as one of its outlying counties.
A set of pictures published later the same day showed one of China's white-hull coast guard ships cutting through the water as Kinmen's main island was visible in the background. Also seen in the image was a small Taiwanese coast guard patrol boat sailing alongside the larger vessel.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its own, despite Taipei's repeated rejections. For decades, China's government vessels largely avoided the waters near Kinmen, around which Taiwan has drawn up prohibited and restricted zones to avoid direct run-ins.
The Taiwan coast guard regularly expels Chinese fishing boats from the waters and has seized an average of 35 illegal vessels a year since 2019, according to the agency's figures.
Kinmen—heavily fortified and once shelled by Communist forces during the Cold War—became a flashpoint this month after a speedboat carrying four Chinese fishermen capsized in its waters while trying to outrun Taiwan's coast guard. The incident resulted in two Chinese deaths—and a promise by Beijing to retaliate.
China's coast guard boats began entering the sensitive waters around Kinmen last week, conducting what the agency said were routine patrols to safeguard the lives and property of Chinese fishermen working in the Taiwan Strait.
Intrusive maneuvers into territorial waters claimed by Taiwan are unprecedented in recent decades. The Chinese navy has come dangerously close, but its warships have never crossed the 24-nautical mile buffer off Taiwan proper, according to defense officials in Taipei.
China's nationalist Global Times newspaper, citing an unnamed source, reported on Monday that the Chinese and Taiwanese coast guard interaction happened within Kinmen's restricted maritime zone, which Beijing recently said it would not recognize.
Also on Sunday, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said the provincial fisheries bureau in Fujian, opposite Taiwan, would dispatched two of its own law enforcement boats to the same waters to "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of fisherfolk as well as their lives and property."
Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council, which oversees its Coast Guard Administration, didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's written request for comment.
Kuan Bi-ling, who heads the council, said last week that coast guard personnel would be allocated $680,000 for thousands of personal recording devices, which Taipei believes will increase transparency around future incidents.
The situation around Kinmen poses a different kind of challenge for Taiwan—one in which China is playing up its numerical advantage while pressuring its smaller neighbor with non-military vessels—a so-called "gray zone" tactic that strategists say deliberately stops short of triggering a war.
The People's Republic of China also appears to be taking a calculated risk with its moves on Kinmen, one of two Taiwanese territories where pro-China sentiment prevails.
Chinese maritime law enforcement around Kinmen "will erode Taiwan's control over its territorial waters and risk confrontations between the PRC and Taiwan's maritime law enforcement," the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment on February 23.
The United States "is closely monitoring Beijing's actions," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek last week. Washington—wary that any miscalculation could trigger the next Taiwan Strait crisis—is urging restraint and dialogue.
The U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but remains its main arms supplier as well as its strongest international backer, thanks to provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, enacted the same year Washington and Beijing established formal diplomatic ties.
The text of the TRA—supported by then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware—states that it is U.S. policy "to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States."
The State Department didn't immediately respond to a question about how the TRA's provisions, which do not explicitly mention Taiwan's offshore territory—might apply to Kinmen.
China's coast guard has no publicly available contact information. The Taiwan Affairs Office—a cabinet-level agency in Beijing—didn't immediately return an email seeking comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
