By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) – A Chinese man arrested after his speedboat entered Taipei harbor illegally is a former navy captain who may have been investigating the island’s defenses, Taiwanese authorities said on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s coast guard arrested the man on Sunday in the coastal neighborhood of Tamsui after his boat entered a river leading to Taipei, an incident that came amid ongoing tensions between Taiwan and China.
China views the democratically governed island as its own territory, a claim Taipei rejects.
Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, which runs the coast guard, told reporters in parliament that the man was “quite refined and well presented” and had previously served as a captain in the Chinese navy.
Over the past year, there have been 18 similar cases, most involving Taiwan-controlled islands that lie close to the Chinese coast, Kuan said.
“Looking at the accumulated cases in the past, we cannot rule out that this is a test,” she said, referring to Taiwan’s ability to detect such ships.
Neither China’s Taiwan Affairs Office nor its Defense Ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo, also speaking to reporters in parliament, said the boat incident could be another example of China’s “gray zone” tactics against the island.
Taiwan has complained in recent years that China has used so-called gray zone warfare, designed to exhaust an enemy through irregular tactics without resorting to open combat, such as floating surveillance balloons over the island.
“These gray zone tactics have always existed,” Koo said. “We must always maintain our vigilance and cannot rule out the possibility of taking countermeasures.”
In March, two Taiwanese fishermen strayed into Chinese waters near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, which lie off the coast of China. One of them, a Taiwanese military officer, remains detained in China, while the other was released shortly after.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; additional reporting by Roger Tung and Jeanny Kao; editing by Miral Fahmy)
