CGA urges Beijing not to use typhoons to assert jurisdiction

• By Chiu Chun-fu and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

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The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday urged China not to exploit typhoons to assert jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.

The CGA issued the remarks after it found that China was shadowing eight Japan Coast Guard ships that sheltered in Taiwan proper’s western waters due to Typhoon Champi.

Eight Japan Coast Guard (JCG) vessels sailed southward along the Taiwan Strait median line from 6am on Thursday, reaching waters southwest of Penghu County’s Cimei Island (七美島), outside Taiwan’s contiguous zone, which extends 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the territorial sea baseline, it said.

Coast Guard Administration officers monitor the coast yesterday.

Photo copied by Chiu Chun-fu, Taipei Times

As the Japanese ships prepared for the typhoon, they were followed by five China Coast Guard vessels, the CGA said.

Three of the Japanese vessels were large patrol vessels capable of carrying helicopters — the Reimei (PLH-33), the Yashima (PLH-22) and the Ryukyu (PLH-09) — and five were large patrol vessels — the Taketomi (PL-81), the Kabira (PL-83), the Matsushima (PL-74), the Irabu (PL-95) and the Osumi (PL-202), it said.

China had deployed five coast guard vessels, including the 3,000-tonne-class Baita (CCG-2304), the Xiushan (CCG-2305) and CCG-2308, as well as two 5,000-tonne-class Daishan patrol vessels, CCG-2501 and CCG-2502, the CGA said.

The Japanese coast guard was entitled to pass through the international waters of the Strait under international law and maritime humanitarian principles, the CGA said, citing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The China Coast Guard, by tailing foreign government ships in a storm, exploited a natural disaster to unlawfully assert control over the Taiwan Strait as part of Beijing’s campaign to transform it into a Chinese inland sea, contravening maritime freedoms, navigational safety and the rules-based international order, it said.

The CGA is carrying out disaster prevention duties, maintaining all-weather surveillance of the Chinese vessels and remains fully prepared to take actions necessary to defend the freedom of navigation, safety at sea and Taiwan’s national security, it added.