Posted on December 20, 2023
Taiwan will seize sand dredgers from mainland China that cross into Taiwanese waters as a way to stop illegal gravel mining and growing incursions by civilian flotillas from across the strait.
The move also aims to counter a so-called grey zone tactic by Beijing that has been used to pressure and intimidate Taipei, observers said.
In a review of the Law on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf, Taiwan’s legislature on Monday approved a revision to the statute allowing for the seizure of the dredgers.
Under the revision, “ships or other machinery or equipment illegally used for excavation of sand and gravel in [Taiwan’s] exclusive economic zone or on the continental shelf shall be confiscated regardless of who owns the facilities,” the legislature said in a statement on Monday.
The move also aims to counter a so-called grey zone tactic by Beijing that has been used to pressure and intimidate Taipei, observers said.
In a review of the Law on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf, Taiwan’s legislature on Monday approved a revision to the statute allowing for the seizure of the dredgers.
Under the revision, “ships or other machinery or equipment illegally used for excavation of sand and gravel in [Taiwan’s] exclusive economic zone or on the continental shelf shall be confiscated regardless of who owns the facilities,” the legislature said in a statement on Monday.
The increased penalties helped reduce the number of illegal operations to 224 last year from a high of 4,000 in 2020.
But there had been debate about whether seizure of a boat was reasonable if a sand dredger was rented from a company that was unaware of its illegal operations.
A recent court case raised questions about the ownership of a mainland Chinese dredger confiscated for illegal operations in Taiwanese waters. Its operator claimed the ship did not belong to him and that the law did not specify what to do with the boat if its ownership was in question.
“With the approval of the revised law in the third and final reading today, any Chinese dredger involved in illegal operations will be confiscated regardless of who owns the vessel,” said Kuan Bi-ling, the island’s ocean affairs minister, in response to the revision.
Monday’s revision also applies to mainland fishing boats that enter Taiwanese waters for illegal fishing, according to the legislature.
Between January and September, the island’s coastguard expelled 652 mainland Chinese fishing boats and confiscated 20 of them for crossing into Taiwanese waters for illegal fishing.
Chuang Jui-hsiung, a legislator from the ruling independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, said the revision could further cut the number of offences.
“By confiscating the boats regardless of their ownership, it could effectively stop the offenders from illegal operations, given the expensive prices of the ships and their equipment,” said Chuang, one of the lawmakers who proposed the revision.
He also said seizure was “an effective way to counter the growing grey zone threats from China”.
“Grey zone” operations refer to tactics that occupy the grey area between peace and war and may involve coercive actions that fall short of actual combat or are unlikely to prompt a conventional military response.
Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei, said the dredging and fishing incursions were a part of the People’s Liberation Army’s grey zone warfare against Taiwan.
“The forays have not only damaged our environmental and fishing resources but they are also intended to exhaust our coastguard,” he said, adding the PLA was increasingly using such tactics to pressure and intimidate the island.
Su said the PLA’s grey zone tactics were meant to drain the resources and erode the will of Taiwanese forces.
The island’s defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng has also said Taiwan needed to come up with measures to counter the PLA’s growing grey zone threats.
Beijing regards Taiwan as its territory that must be taken under its control, by force if necessary. It has intensified its military operations around the island since then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August of last year – a trip Beijing saw as a violation of its sovereignty and a breach of Washington’s one-China policy.
Like most countries, the US – Taiwan’s informal ally and biggest arms supplier – does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is opposed to any unilateral change in the cross-strait status quo by force.
