Implications of Chinese fishing boats in Taiwan’s ‘prohibited’ waters

Any plans China and Taiwan had for Valentine’s Day were derailed when, on 14 February, 2024, a Chinese fishing boat with four fishermen on board capsized near the Kinmen Islands, leading to the deaths of two of the fishermen.

The incident occurred when the fishing boat became embroiled in a high-speed chase to evade patrol vessel CP-1051 of the 12th Patrol District of the Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration’s (TGCA) Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu branch.

The chase reportedly lasted only five minutes but has highlighted the structural lack of meaningful communication in cross-Straits relations on basic issues such as fishing rights.

At the same time, the incident also brings to light the nature of law enforcement activities the TCGA is required to engage in on a regular basis, given the sensitivity of the issue of illicit fishing for local populations as well as the tense cross-Straits relationship.

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The challenge

Illicit fishing by Chinese fishing vessels has deep humanitarian and environmental impacts in the waters around the three Taiwan-governed off-shore islands, namely Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu. Of these, the Kinmen and Matsu groups of islands are much closer to the territory of mainland China than Taiwan proper, and this has made them virtually indefensible against the activities of Chinese fishermen’s boats, the Coast Guard, and the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

These boats, in particular, operate under “ three noes"—no vessel name, no ship certificate, and no registered home port—and come in various forms, from boats meant specifically for the fishing of squids to sand-mining dredgers that collect tonnes of seafloor sand.

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The former drastically deplete marine resources and cause overfishing, while the latter cause great destruction to seabed marine life and lead to the reduction of beach sizes through desilting.

In addition, squid-fishing boats that deploy green LED lights to attract cephalopods to the surface  impact the “dark sky tourism” industry in Matsu, which is based on the phenomenon of phosphorescence caused by bioluminescent algae around the islands’ waters.

This has had both significant economic impacts on the local tourism industry as well as light pollution-related challenges for residents.

Similarly, sand-dredgers cause severe noise pollution for residents, creating grave local sensitivity to the challenges posed by the increasing activities of Chinese boats.

Most importantly, there is a political angle emerging from tense cross-Straits relations that adds to the woes of the TCGA and exacerbates the need for law enforcement activities such as the one conducted against the Chinese fishing boat near Kinmen.

As per the ‘Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area’ (hereby referred to as the ‘ Act’), passed by the Taiwanese Executive Yuan in 1992, to varying degrees, the waters around Kinmen, Matsu, and Penghu are marked as “prohibited” or “restricted” for Chinese vessels. The Act empowers Taiwanese authorities to take relevant punitive actions against any vessels that enter these zones without permission from relevant authorities.

But because of the grey-zone nature of Taiwan’s international legal status, as well as China’s incessant denial of the existence of such “prohibited” or “restricted” zones, there has been no meaningful agreement between the two sides on fishing rights in the waters around the off-shore islands.

China argues that these waters have been open to fishing and tourism for people on both sides of the Straits historically, and any demarcation of waters as “prohibited” or “restricted” is incompatible with the fundamentals of cross-Straits relations.

As a result, even though Chinese Coast Guard vessels have largely complied with the demarcations, steering rarely into “restricted” waters, fishermen boats, such as one that recently capsized near Kinmen, have regularly strayed into what Taiwan refers to as “prohibited” waters.

The responses

In the context of the abovementioned humanitarian, environmental, and political challenges, the TCGA undertook punitive measures against the Chinese fishing boat in accordance with the powers entrusted under Articles 29 and 32 of the Act. The boat, as the Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Council has argued in subsequent press releases, was overturned due to its risky manoeuvres evading inspection by Taiwanese authorities. While two of the four crew members on board the fishing vessel lost their lives, the other two are currently in holding with the Kinmen District Prosecutor’s office.

China has responded to the incident, albeit in a ‘relatively’ muted manner. To begin with, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Mainland Taiwan Affairs Office, has demanded an immediate investigation from Taiwan on the truth of the incident and has condemned the TCGA for its “malicious” act. Subsequently, the Fujian province maritime police (coast guard) has  announced intensified efforts to survey waters in the Xiamen-Kinmen area and perform exercises such as formation sailing, identification and verification, guarding and protecting fishing, and issuing warnings through verbal communication.

This increased presence and activity is also manifesting itself in some tense encounters. For example, on 19 February, the TCGA  reported that six personnel from two Chinese coast guard vessels even boarded a Taiwanese tourist ship, the “Jin Xia Cruise” vessel, to inspect the vessel’s navigation plan, ship documents, captain and crew licences, and the captain’s signature. A day later, on 20 February, Chinese coast guard vessel 8029  entered the “restricted” waters around Kinmen and had to be accompanied by a TCGA vessel till it eventually left after surveilling the waters for about an hour.

Next steps

It now remains to be seen how the investigation opened up in Taiwan plays out. What has seemingly struck the family members of the deceased and captive fishermen, and many others in both China and Taiwan asking questions, is that there is no video footage of the incident.

The TCGA has  attributed the lack of visual or audio evidence to the high-speed nature of the chase and the inability of the evidence collection crew to retrieve the handheld camera equipment in time (as the chase lasted only five minutes). Moreover, the TCGA has argued that the crew was focused largely on balancing the vessel in the face of extensive rocking by waves and on preparing against forceful boarding by the fishermen’s boat. Now that the case is with the Kinmen Prosecutor’s Office, the TCGA has encouraged the afflicted to put faith in Taiwan’s judicial system and has defended its actions as routine law enforcement activity with no political or “malicious” intent.

the past, Kinmen and Matsu have been the sites for missile shelling by China during the ‘Second Taiwan Straits Conflict’ of 1958. Now,  analysts argue they could be the sites for China’s first steps towards taking over Taiwan, given their virtually indefensible nature against Chinese naval activity.

The military-security aspect is exacerbated by environmental concerns surrounding the slow degradation of marine resources due to incessant Chinese fishing activities around these waters and the economic and humanitarian impacts of overfishing and light and noise pollution.

Forgotten for decades, the geopolitical and bilateral relevance of these off-shore islands is immense in cross-Straits dynamics, and this incident has revived some of the debates around safety and security associated with these waters.

The author is a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution, a public policy think tank based out of Bengaluru, India. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views_.

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