Taiwan's coast guard shadows a Chinese survey ship that lowered a sensor off Kaohsiung

Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration sent the patrol ship Tainan on Tuesday 3 November to shadow and drive off the Chinese research vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8, which it said was surveying illegally in Taiwan's exclusive economic zone southwest of Kaohsiung with four Chinese fishing boats in company. The agency said the stand-off was still under way on Tuesday evening, according to reports by Newtalk, the United Daily News and the China Times.

According to the coast guard, the group reached a point about 61 nautical miles southwest of Kaohsiung harbour, 26 nautical miles beyond the outer edge of Taiwan's restricted waters, at around three in the afternoon, and the research ship then lowered an unidentified instrument from its stern. The agency named the fishing boats as Guiheyu 00181, Guibeiyu 80888, Guibeiyu 80889 and Guibeiyu 10098 and described them as militia vessels escorting the survey ship. The China Times reported that the coast guard had seen no sign that the four boats were actually fishing.

The Tainan broadcast warnings in Mandarin and English telling the Chinese crew that they were inside the Republic of China's exclusive economic zone, that they held no sovereign rights or jurisdiction there, that their conduct breached international conventions, and that they must leave at once. The patrol ship kept station alongside the survey vessel while repeating the warnings, the agency said. It added that it had tracked the whole group throughout with joint surveillance and reconnaissance assets.

A ship with a record

The coast guard said Haiyang Dizhi 8 had been active in Taiwan's southwestern waters repeatedly in recent weeks and had been linked to interference with Taiwanese fishermen. On the night of 15 October, a Kaohsiung-registered fishing boat, the Tai Sheng Hsing, had its net apparently dragged and damaged by the research ship southwest of Kaohsiung, and coast guard vessels went to help. On 18 October the research ship and accompanying Chinese militia boats disrupted another Taiwanese boat, the Wan Fa Cheng 11, in the same area, and the patrol ship Pingtung was sent to respond.

That makes Tuesday's encounter the third time in less than three weeks that the agency has publicly tied the same Chinese ship to activity in the waters off Kaohsiung, Taiwan's main southern port.

The vessel is not new to regional disputes. In July 2019 Vietnam's foreign ministry accused Haiyang Dizhi 8 and its escorts of violating Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf near the Spratly Islands, during a weeks-long stand-off between Chinese and Vietnamese coast guard ships, Al Jazeera reported at the time.

Taipei's reading

The coast guard said China's unauthorised survey work could not be ruled out as preparation of a future battlefield and as serving political aims. It said Chinese ships may not carry out marine scientific research or exploration in Taiwan's exclusive economic zone without Taiwanese permission, and accused Beijing of pairing a state research ship with maritime militia boats in a hybrid campaign to stretch its reach, harming regional peace and stability.

The agency said Taiwan and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, called on Beijing to stop the incursions immediately, and said it would take all necessary measures to defend Taiwan's sovereignty and the security of its waters. It did not say what the instrument lowered from the research ship was designed to measure.