Taiwan said yesterday that China warned Taiwan’s coast guard against interfering in the detention of a Taiwanese fishing boat.
The incident comes amid heightened political tensions following the election of the island’s leader William Lai Ching-te, whose party rejects unification with the mainland, and an apparent threat by Beijing to execute “diehard” advocates of Taiwan independence.
Taiwan’s coast guard repeated its call for the release of the boat and its crew members who were taken from waters off the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen just off the Chinese coast on Tuesday night.
A spokesperson for Taiwan’s coast guard, Hsieh Ching-chin, said the boat was not in Chinese waters when it was boarded by Chinese agents and steered to a port in the Chinese province of Fujian.
The Dajinman 88 was intercepted by two Chinese vessels, and Taiwan dispatched three vessels to help but the one that got close to the fishing boat was blocked by three Chinese boats and told not to interfere, the coast guard’s initial statement said.
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