Taiwan’s coast guard has run greater than a dozen joint rescue operations with China within the final three years, the company’s chief mentioned on Thursday — marking a uncommon space of cooperation between each governments amid mounting tensions.
Chou Mei-wu, the director-general of Taiwan’s coast guard, made the remark in parliament on the identical day that his company introduced one such joint effort.
Taiwan’s coast guard mentioned it is working with Chinese language authorities to rescue crew from a Chinese language fishing boat that capsized early Thursday morning close to the Kinmen Islands.
The boat was carrying six crew, two of whom have been discovered useless whereas one other two have been rescued, Taiwan’s coast guard mentioned.
Taiwan dispatched 4 vessels and China despatched six to seek for the remaining pair, per the company.
“Within the final three years, we had 17 such instances the place they requested us for help, and we rescued 119 individuals,” Chou instructed legislators.
The joint rescue comes as Beijing’s posture towards Taiwan — which it says falls underneath China’s jurisdiction — grows more and more hostile. Chinese language chief Xi Jinping has vowed that reunification is “inevitable,” and hasn’t dominated out utilizing drive to take the self-governed island.
Taiwan in January re-elected the Democratic Progressive Get together, which goals to withstand Beijing, indicating rising island-wide resentment towards absorption by the mainland.
Regardless of the tensions, China stays one in every of Taiwan’s most essential commerce companions, with Taiwanese investments within the mainland totaling $203 billion within the final 20 years. However cross-strait investments have fallen to 20-year lows as the specter of battle looms and US-China tech disputes rise.
Certainly, Chou revealed the statistics on coast guard cooperation at a four-hour parliamentary listening to discussing the Chinese language Communist Get together’s “normalized intrusion and threats” to Taiwan.
In the meantime, some on Chinese language social media handled the current joint effort as a signal of Taiwan turning into extra subservient to mainland rule. But many additionally expressed unhappiness that the incident was portrayed as Taiwan serving to China, and due to this fact taking the lead.
In February, tensions flared once more when a Chinese language fishing boat carrying 4 individuals capsized within the Taiwan Strait whereas being pursued by Taiwan’s coast guard.
Two of these on board died, whereas Taiwan quickly detained the opposite two.
Taiwan’s coast guard mentioned the boat misplaced stability on a pointy flip. Nonetheless, China has accused Taipei of mendacity after one of many fishermen claimed to state media that the coast guard rammed his vessel.
