Chinese coast guard ship tells a Taiwanese cutter off Orchid Island that the Republic of China does not exist

Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration says one of its cutters confronted a China Coast Guard ship southeast of Orchid Island, also known as Lanyu, on 12 November, after the Chinese crew used the radio to deny that the Republic of China exists. The agency made the encounter public on 14 November.

According to the Taiwanese account, the cutter Hualien, hull number CG-1006, detected China Coast Guard vessel 2503 at about 3pm local time, roughly 40 nautical miles southeast of Lanyu and 14 nautical miles outside the limit of Taiwan's restricted waters. The Hualien moved to monitor the ship and drive it away.

The Chinese ship answered with a political message rather than a change of course, the coast guard said. Its crew addressed the Hualien as a ship of China's Taiwan, said it was carrying out a law-enforcement inspection patrol in waters east of Taiwan, and asserted that the Republic of China does not exist, that the People's Republic is the only legal government of China and that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. The ship also told vessels sailing in the area to comply with Chinese law. These statements are Chinese claims, reported here as relayed by Taiwan's coast guard.

The Hualien replied over the radio that the Republic of China, Taiwan, is a sovereign state and that neither side of the strait is subordinate to the other. Its crew said the ship was inside Taiwan's exclusive economic zone, where China holds no sovereign rights or jurisdiction, said the Chinese conduct breached international conventions and demanded that it leave.

The Chinese ship eventually moved away. By 8am on 14 November it was about 67 nautical miles southeast of Hualien port, and Taiwanese patrol ships were still shadowing it, the agency said.

The coast guard described the episode as fake law enforcement aimed at a real expansion of power, a form of cognitive warfare intended to create the impression that China administers waters around Taiwan. It said the broadcasts breached the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, interfered with freedom of navigation and would never be accepted by the international community, and it pledged to keep watching for grey-zone harassment and to take whatever measures were needed.

The same hull has been here before. Ship 2503 is the Zhujiajian, which led a two-ship Chinese formation east of Taiwan in late September. On 29 September a spokesperson for China's coast guard claimed that the formation was conducting routine law-enforcement patrols east of what Beijing called China's Taiwan island. Taiwan's coast guard said at the time that it was tracking the Zhujiajian and a second ship, the Chongming, hull 1401, about 97 nautical miles northeast of Green Island and 146 nautical miles east of Lanyu.

The coast guard's own figures put this week's encounter much closer to Taiwan than the September patrol. In September the nearest reported position was well over 100 nautical miles from Lanyu and the jurisdiction claim came from a spokesperson ashore. This week the ship was 40 nautical miles from the island and the claim was broadcast at sea, directly to a Taiwanese cutter and to nearby shipping, according to the coast guard's figures.

Taiwan's coast guard framed the Lanyu encounter as part of continuing grey-zone harassment and compound threats from China. It said it would keep monitoring the seas around Taiwan to defend the island's sovereignty and maritime rights and to keep order and safety at sea, without saying whether any other Chinese coast guard ships were operating east of Taiwan this week.