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Taiwan has asked merchant vessels flying its flag to refuse onboard inspections by the Chinese coast guard after China's maritime authorities launched patrols on Wednesday in response to a meeting between Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan's defense minister, told a parliamentary hearing in Taipei on Thursday that authorities would "absolutely not permit" Taiwanese ships to be boarded by Chinese inspectors.
"As long as the vessels are flying our flag, they are a part of our territory. This is an international rule," Chiu said.
Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own, promised a forceful response to Tsai's historic talks with McCarthy, which took place in the Republican leader's home state of California.
A day before the April 5 meeting, China's Fujian Maritime Safety Administration, located in the Chinese province directly opposite Taiwan, announced three days of patrols in the Taiwan Strait.
A fleet, led by coast guard cutter the Haixun 06, would conduct searches along sea lines between Taiwanese and Chinese ports, carrying out "on-site inspections" of ferries and cargo and construction vessels, the announcement said.
Taiwan's port authority asked locally flagged crews to reject attempts at boarding and instead to notify the Taiwanese coast guard, which would render assistance.
Taipei's China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said Beijing was deliberately raising tensions by "obviously violating cross-strait maritime transport agreements and general maritime practice."
"The gradual resumption of healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges after the pandemic is a policy we continue to promote," its statement said. "However, if the mainland insists on taking unilateral and unreasonable actions to obstruct normal cross-strait exchanges, we will be forced to take corresponding measures."
The council's counterpart in Beijing, the Taiwan Affairs Office, couldn't be reached by phone for comment.
The Haixun 06, which at 420 feet and 6,600 tons is the largest Chinese coast guard ship operating in the strait, was monitored at a distance of 0.5 nautical miles by Taiwanese patrol vessel the Hsinchu, the island's coast guard said.
Officials in Taipei were yet to report any cases of forced inspections at the time of publication.
The Haixun 6's patrol of the northern and central sections of the Taiwan Strait was the subject of a three-hour live stream aired on Thursday by China's state broadcaster CCTV.
The broadcast explicitly mentioned the McCarthy-Tsai meeting as the reason behind the maritime operation, but also sent meaningful signals that might explain Beijing's relatively restrained reaction compared to its show of force in August 2022, when California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei as sitting House speaker.
Wednesday's meeting, Chinese analysts said on the show, was "especially low key" and involved a grassroots politician in McCarthy, whose background was markedly different from that of Pelosi's political family.
The Republican leader also wasn't a "radical hawk" who put on shows to display "deeply ingrained political ideologies," the commentators said.
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About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more