Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that it detected one plane and three Chinese warships around the island, after the meeting between its president, Tsai Ing-wen, and the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
China’s Fujian Maritime Safety Administration has launched a three-day special inspection and patrol operation in central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait which includes operations to board ships, as announced on his WeChat account.
The move comes amid rising tensions between China and Taiwan.
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in California on Wednesday, becoming the highest-ranking US figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on US soil in decades. .
The maritime safety authority in the southeast China province said on Wednesday that the operation includes “on-site inspections” on direct cargo ships and construction ships on both sides of the Taiwan Strait “to ensure the navigational safety of ships. “.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation’s Maritime and Port Bureau said in a statement late Wednesday that it had lodged a strong protest with China over the move.
The entity said it has notified relevant shipping operators that they must reject such requests from China and immediately inform the island’s coast guard for assistance.
“If the mainland insists on taking unilateral action, it will create obstacles to normal exchanges between the two sides. We will be forced to take corresponding measures,” he added, without elaborating.
The areas covered by the operation include the Pingtan Taiwan direct container route, the “three minor links” passenger route, the Taiwan Strait regular shipping route, the densely navigable areas of commercial and fishing vessels, and areas with frequent illegal sand extraction activities.
The “three links” passenger route refers to the boat routes between Taiwan’s Kinmen and Matsu islands, which lie off China, and Chinese cities.
Free world
Standing with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in front of a blue and white Boeing plane that Reagan flew as president in the 1980s, Kevin McCarthy called the friendship between the peoples of Taiwan and the United States “an issue of profound importance to the free world”.
Speaking at a press conference later with the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who participated in the meeting with Tsai, McCarthy said they had discussed how to speed up arms deliveries to Taiwan.
“We must continue arms sales to Taiwan and ensure that such sales come in a timely manner,” he said, adding that he believed there was bipartisan agreement on this.
“Second, we must strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly with trade and technology.”
