Abducted coast guards freed

Taiwan’s China policy making Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) successfully secured the release of the coast guards Tsai Kuang-min and Yen Wen-cheng after talks with its Chinese counterparts in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The Taiwanese coast guards were abducted by Chinese fishermen following a dispute over a boat collision, officials said.

The incident took place Saturday off the Penghu islands, a Taiwanese territory about 60 kilometers west of its main island.

Officials said the Penghu-based boat Juifuchin 26 rammed the Chinese fishing boat Minlong 5788.

Crew from the Juifuchin 26 called Taiwan’s Fisheries Radio for help when they were attacked by fishermen from Minlong 5788 and surrounded by two other Chinese fishing boats.

After this, Tsai and Yen, who arrived on the scene in a coast guard vessel, boarded the Min Long 5788 to maintain order, said You Chien-tse of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration.

But in an unexpected twist, the mainland fishermen quickly abducted the two armed Taiwanese coast guard officials and headed toward China’s southern coast, You said.

Taiwanese authorities then sent five patrol boats, a helicopter and two naval ships to pursue the Chinese boat in a marathon maritime chase.

The six-hour chase ended as the Chinese fishing boat passed the unofficial borderline between Chinese and Taiwanese territorial waters and stopped at an area about 12 nautical miles off a port in Fujian Province, said Lu Shih-kuang, a deputy director of Coast Guard Administration Penghu Operations.

At the same time, Lu said, coast guards notified the Cabinet-level MAC, which in turn contacted its counterpart in China for talks over the safety and release of Tsai and Yen.

Following a two-hour stand-off, Tsai and Yen were eventually released around 1 a.m. and sent back to a Taiwanese fishing boat via another Chinese fishing vessel. They returned to Penghu about 6.30 a.m..

No-one was injured in the incident — the fourth of its kind over the past decade between the island and rival mainland China.

Both Tsai and Yen looked tired and were reluctant to speak to the media.

But they denied the Chinese fishermen had threatened them using knives. They said their abductors were quite friendly and offered them mineral water.

Tsai and Yen both said that the Chinese fishermen abducted them because they feared their boat, which was becoming waterlogged after the collision, would be towed to Makung on one of the outlying islands in Taiwan’s territory. On seeing two Taiwanese coast guards board their ship, the Chinese fishermen chose to whisk them off to mainland waters rather than face having their ship towed to Taiwan.

Tsai and Yen both said they could forgive the Chinese fishermen for this.

A Coast Guard Administration official said no action was taken against the Chinese vessel as it was concerned about triggering further trouble, given perennial tensions between the island and the mainland.

But he added Chinese security officials had told the Taiwan side they would question the Chinese fisherman according to Chinese legal procedures.

There has been no formal contact between Taiwan and China for over half a century. Beijing has threatened war if self-governing Taiwan moves toward formal independence.

Fishing disputes often rise between the rivals, but it is rare for fishermen to abduct patrol guards.

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