The CHN/ China thread

[Jimbuna]

Taiwan says China seizes fishing boat near Chinese coast

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing boat operating near China's coast close to a Taiwan-controlled island late Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, Taiwan's coast guard said, in a further escalation of tensions.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up pressure on Taipei since President Lai Ching-te took office in May, a man Beijing accuses of being a "separatist".

The squid fishing boat was near the Taiwan-administered Kinmen islands, which sit next to the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, but in Chinese waters on Tuesday night when it was boarded and seized by two Chinese maritime administration boats, Taiwan's coast guard said.
The Taiwanese boat was operating during China's no-fishing period, the coast guard said, adding Taiwan will communicate with China and urge them to release the fishermen as soon as possible.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taiwan sent its own coast guard ships to assist and broadcast warnings asking China to release the fishing boat, but China's ships broadcast back saying not to interfere, Taiwan's coast guard said.

Taiwan's ships then backed off to avoid a conflict and the Taiwanese fishing vessel was then taken to a Chinese port, it added, saying three of the five fishermen were Indonesian migrant workers.

Taiwan Coast Guard Administration Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin told reporters in Taipei that China should explain why it had seized the boat, and pointed out that in previous cases, fishermen had been released after paying fines when operating during China's no-fishing season.

Taiwanese fishing boats need to raise their alert level and the coast guard will also strengthen its patrols, he added.

"The coast guard also calls on the mainland side not to use political factors to handle this situation," Hsieh said.

Judha Nugraha, director for citizen protection at Indonesia's foreign ministry, told Reuters the country's consulate general in Guangzhou will assist the detained Indonesians.

This is not the first time a Taiwan fishing boat has taken by Chinese authorities after operating in that country's waters, an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

A Taiwan official, who's familiar with the island's security planning, told Reuters they have issued alerts to fishing and transport authorities around Taiwan to pay attention to "possible risks" amid frequent Chinese coast guard activities in the region, including near Japan and the Philippines.

It is not uncommon for Taiwan and China to detain each other's trespassing fishing boats. So far this year Taiwan has detained five such boats from China, Taiwan coast guard data shows.

Chinese maritime enforcement and coast guard ships have been regularly operating around Kinmen since February after two Chinese fishermen died trying to flee Taiwan's coast guard.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...aaa71853&ei=56

[em2nought]

After watching a few videos I'd probably rather be under Chinese control than democrat control. Not sure what would be so bad for Taiwan, I think I'd chose Chyna control over war having the West as my ally. Maybe part of what is driving Russia and Chyna is the incredible level of crazy exhibited by the left in the West.

[mapuc]

Everything have a price- Taiwan should ask China how much they want for the island.

Markus

[Reece]

Not for sale!

[Jimbuna]

Taiwan declares China’s capture of fishing trawler an ‘act of psychological warfare’

China’s seizure of a Taiwanese trawler is likely an act of psychological warfare to build pressure on the island’s government amid rising tensions in the region, Taiwanese officials claimed on Thursday.

The boat was captured after it reportedly sailed into Chinese waters on Tuesday.

Taipei is working to have the boat released, the officials said.

There were five fishermen onboard, three of them Indonesian.

They were fishing for squid in the waters near the Kinmen islands, the officials said.

Kinmen lies just off China’s coast but is controlled by Taiwan.

China reacted strongly to the vessel’s presence in its waters and said it violated a summer ban on fishing.

It accused Taiwan of carrying out illegal trawling in Chinese waters.

Tsai Ming-yen, director general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, claimed it was unusual for Chinese officials to board and detain a Taiwanese trawler.

"We must continue to analyse whether this is a cognitive warfare operation and will fully assess what the motivations are for the Chinese communists," Tsai said.

Taiwan’s coast guard said China has seized Taiwanese trawlers before for illegal fishing but released them after fines were paid.

Chiu Chui-cheng, a top Taiwanese official for China affairs, said Taipei will work to get the boat and its fishermen released.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday confirmed the seizure of the boat and called it an act of "normal law enforcement" to protect fishery resources and the environment.

It said the boat was engaged in illegal fishing. "The relevant departments will deal with it in accordance with the law and regulations.”

The capture of the boat comes as a time of heightened tensions in the region.

China and Taiwan have been engaged in a diplomatic war of words especially since Lai Ching-te took over as Taiwan’s president in May.

Beijing, which considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory, has accused Mr Lai of being a "separatist", meaning that he wants to prevent the island’s unification with the mainland.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...d=BingNewsSerp

[Jimbuna]

Exclusive-Philippines turned down US help amid South China Sea tensions - military chief

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States to assist operations in the South China Sea, after a flare-up with China over missions to resupply Filipino troops on a contested shoal, its military chief said.

Tensions in the disputed waterway have boiled over into violence in the past year, with a Filipino sailor losing a finger in the latest June 17 clash that Manila described as “intentional-high speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard.

The US, a treaty ally, has offered support but Manila prefers to handle operations on its own, Armed Forces Chief General Romeo Brawner told Reuters late Thursday.

“Yes, of course, they have been offering help and they asked us how they could help us in any way,” he said.
“We try to exhaust all possible options that we have before we ask for help.”

Manila and Washington are bound by the 1951-Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), a military pact that can be invoked in the case of armed attacks on Philippine forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea.

Confrontations between the Philippines and China in Asia's most contested waters have increased in frequency over the past year as Beijing has pressed its claim to the waterway and Manila continued missions to bring supplies to soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship that it grounded on a contested shoal.

Some observers, including former deputy US National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, have called for direct US naval support for the resupply missions.

But Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said the Philippines wanted them to be a “pure Philippine operation”.

“This is our legitimate national interest, so we don’t see any reason for them (the US) to come in,” Ano told Reuters.

Ano, who spoke to his U.S counterpart Jake Sullivan last month to discuss shared concerns over China’s "dangerous and escalatory actions", said the MDT was “far from being invoked”.

"We (the Philippines and China) agreed that there will be some easing tension, but we will assert our rights, we will not compromise our national interest, and we will continue to fight and claim what is ours,' Ano said.

Neither official specified what support the US had offered.

Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, told Reuters he believed the US was open to naval escorts for the resupply missions to the stranded vessel. Washington has already provided some limited support, he said.

A Philippine official said last year Manila was consulting the US Army Corps of Engineers on how best to stabilise the BRP Sierra Madre, which was grounded on the contested Second Thomas Shoal, Poling said, while US aircraft have been filmed providing overwatch of the ship on multiple occasions.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled in 2016 that Beijing's expansive South China Sea claims via its nine-dash line had no basis under international law, but that has not stopped China, which rejects the ruling, from being more assertive in the waterway.

It has deployed coast guard vessels to patrol those areas, alarming the Philippines, rival Southeast Asian claimants and other states operating in the South China Sea, including the US, which is wary about China's growing military power and territorial ambition.

Military chief Brawner said the United States' offer of support, made in discussions at his level, was not a direct response to the June 17 incident but rather a reflection of the enduring military alliance between the two countries.

"It is really because of our being treaty allies, so that offer has been available to us for a long time not just because of the incident," Brawner said.

"But we did not ask them yet because as per the orders of our president we have to rely on ourself first."

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday was a federal holiday in Washington for the United States' Independence Day.

While China claims nearly all the South China Sea, a major shipping lane with about $3 trillion in trade passing through it annually, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also claim parts.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...202f3bc9&ei=54

[Jimbuna]

Beijing's 'monster ship,' the world's largest coastguard vessel, dropped anchor in the South China Sea

Jay Tarriela, a spokesperson for the PCG, wrote on X that the authority had successfully tracked the movements of the China Coast Guard's (CCG) "165-meter monster ship" by "using Canada's Dark Vessel Detection technology."

"On July 1st, the ship departed from Hainan and entered the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on the following day," he wrote.
The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 was later "radio challenged" by the PCG, which asked it to confirm its intentions and to remind it that it was operating within the EEZ, he added.

An exclusive economic zone is an area of the ocean "beyond a nation's territorial sea, within which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over both living and nonliving resources."

Tarriela wrote on Friday that the Chinese ship had been anchored at Escoda Shoal "for over two consecutive days" while "maintaining a close proximity" to a PCG vessel. He added that the distance between the ships was "less than 800 yards."

Tarriela later told a news forum that the Chinese vessel's moves were "an intimidation on the part of the China Coast Guard."

"We're not going to pull out and we're not going to be intimidated," he added.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...d=BingNewsSerp

[Skybird]

And we think we still can tell them how thw world is running?? Really...??

I compare it to the Deutsche Bundesbahn, the eroding infrastructure in Germany, the videos on the state of things in the US - and cant stop laughing. We are done!







I dont say I like the sights of all this, it definitely is not mine. But it is absolutely, totally impressive, it flattens you at first glance. If you have a chance, watch videos like this in VR on a big virtual movie screen, then you get completely soaked in.






The price of this sort of infrastructure and modernness of course is absolute total control by the state. Cameras, face recognition and digital tracking everywhere, no escape. If they flip a switch, you cant go anywhere, cant do anything, are lost and at the state's mercy. The state can literally switch you off, like any piece of machine. The videos show two absolute extremes in one.

[Jimbuna]

No thanks, I'm quite happy here in medieval England

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

No thanks, I'm quite happy here in medieval England

The old falls, the new rises.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Skybird

And we think we still can tell them how the world is running?? Really...??

If they flip a switch, you cant go anywhere, cant do anything, are lost and at the state's mercy. The state can literally switch you off, like any piece of machine. The videos show two absolute extremes in one.

That last bit sounds like our democrats wet dreams come true.

[Reece]

That's not nice!

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Reece

That's not nice!

I meant to say democrat leaders if that makes it any better for you.

Yeah, after watching those videos I'd say that western civilization is doomed. I wouldn't ride the subway in my own country, and I'm not to fond of the idea of walking around one of our cities either. Even though Bangkok feels more gritty than any of this footage from Chyna, I never felt nervous walking around Bangkok like I would Tampa, or DC, or New York.

[Reece]

It does!

[Skybird]

Well, the inner political power structures, the foreign diplomatic aggresisveness in the South Chinese Sea and the seeking of global trade dominance are facts, too, one should not ignore or forget these, and I don't, but I think we do the ordinary Chinese citizen injustice if we judge each and every one of them according to the political powerplay of their government , and I think we really must learn to pay respect for the short time they took - the hilariously short time! - to build all this industrial, economical and architectural grandezza and display of modern culture that may be alien to us (I cannot imagine to live in these cities and amongst so many people, I would get depressive) but nevertheless reflect obviously these people's taste and desire and seems to fit them well. And if their trade is aggressive, so was Western trade in India, Japan and Africa as well and captialism has lost control of monopolism which again haunts the world and does incredible damages at other people'S costs. Back then we were the ones who were the superiors, and we abused that superiority as best as we could. Now we are not superior to the world anymore. We are the old world that has climaxed decades ago, and now is in decline. They rise. We fall.


What I absolutely do not like is when our own media in best demonization tradition even forge the simpliest obvious pictures - literally - just to give them a bad name and reassure ourselves that we are so much better and nicier than them. That is manipulation of ourselves. Propaganda. I found it hard to believe what the guy who did some of these videos told about this dance he had with Western media and even the BBC. Greying pictures, dear BBC, to make a country look shabby? Really...? Thats shabby trciks and playing foul.



An interesting channel, since he can compare first hand experience from living in both worlds. As long as he does not have his name of the Chinese propaganda ministry's payroll.

We always see the splinters in the eyes of others too easily, but we don't want to see the beams in our own eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLivinginChina/videos


BTW, I still love my Fenix pocket torches, completely made in China. Superior quality. And their chips most likely not spying on me.