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SEOUL, South Korea — The Chinese government has announced that it will no longer respect a de facto maritime boundary with Taiwan and will expand Coast Guard activities around a Taiwan-controlled island off China’s coast, following an incident in which two Chinese fishermen were killed in a sea chase with Taiwanese government vessels last week.
The new tensions center on Kinmen, a small island formerly known as Quemoy. The Taiwanese-controlled island lies just 1.8 miles off the coast of China, close to the Chinese city of Xiamen and 116 miles from Taiwan, the island democracy China’s Communist government has vowed one day to take over.
Kinmen, the scene of heavy fire exchanges in the 1950s, remains heavily fortified to this day, with beach-landing obstacles, heavy guns and even a Taiwanese special forces contingent stationed on the island.
Two Chinese fishermen drowned, and two more were taken into Taiwanese custody on Feb.14, after their boat capsized off Kinmen while seeking to escape from a Taiwanese Coast Guard vessel. Taipei said that they were fishing inside the island’s restricted zone.
China’s Coast Guard released a statement on Sunday saying it will “strengthen its maritime law enforcement forces” and conduct “regular law enforcement patrols and inspections” in the waters around Kinmen. A day earlier, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office made clear it would cease to respect a long-standing unofficial boundary in the area.
“Fishermen on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been operating in traditional fishing grounds in the Xiamen-Kinmen maritime area since ancient times, and there is no such thing as ’prohibited or restricted waters,’” the office stated.
The announcements suggest that China’s so-called “salami-slicing” tactics — incremental advances, often by deniable assets, that challenge Taiwan’s status — remain in play.
The seriousness of the Chinese move is up for debate.
“I think neither Taiwan nor China seeks to spark a clash at this point, so I am optimistic that common sense will prevail,” said Drew Thompson, a former director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, referring to rules of engagement and operating procedures by both sides’ coast guards. “Neither Beijing nor Taipei wants its Coast Guard to dictate the direction of cross-Strait relations.”
But the public announcement that Beijing will no longer recognize the restricted zone off the flashpoint site of Kinmen is more worrisome, he said.
“In 1992, the Taiwanese government established a restricted zone around Kinmen and that was written into Taiwanese law,” Mr. Thompson, a research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told The Washington Times. “It was an unrecognized but respected boundary, and I think operationally there has been a degree of respect.”
The weekend declaration echoes Beijing’s reaction to a visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022, Mr. Thompson said, the highest-level visit by an American official in a quarter-century. Beijing responded with military drills and missile tests — and by sending aircraft and vessels over the “median line” that runs down the middle of the Taiwan Strait.
The median line had previously been a de facto demarcation line. Now it is no longer recognized as such by Beijing, and Chinese assets are routinely probing closer to Taiwan, albeit while remaining within international waters and skies.
A similar response looks now set after the Kinmen clash.
“This is a form of brazen, ’gray-zone’ coercion, taking advantage of an incident where Chinese fishermen had not respected the previously respected boundary,” Mr. Thompson contended.
If China’s military ever sought to invade Taiwan, experts believe it would first have to seize Kinmen to secure its line of communications before unleashing its main force 100 miles across the Strait. Chinese President Xi Jinping is widely reported to have told his commanders to build up the capacity to invade Taiwan by 2027, while still insisting Beijing prefers a peaceful unification.
Many in Washington have looked with trepidation upon the ongoing buildup of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy. Today, China’s navy deploys carrier strike groups and, as of 2023, nuclear-powered ballistic- missile submarines. In the South China Sea, the PLAN has used reefs and islets to build up heavily defended forward operational bases, including both airstrips and docks.
However, China is believed to favor other tactics when operating close to other countries’ shores.
Armed and centrally controlled fishing fleets — “maritime militias” — and lightly armed Coast Guard vessels have been Beijing’s tool of choice to promote territorial claims to fishing grounds, shoals and islands, including in disputes with Japan and the Philippines.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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