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Coast guard wants new vessels

ROC Central News Agency

2008-06-16 17:05:59

    Taipei, June 16 (CNA) The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said Monday that it will submit an assessment to the Executive Yuan on the need for building new vessels to protect Taiwan's fishing boats operating in disputed waters.

    The assessment will be put to the Executive Yuan shortly in a report on the country's need for new patrol craft, CGA officials said.

    According to the officials, the administration will detail its need for new large and small boats, including patrol ships weighing between 500 tons and 700 tons, out of a comprehensive evaluation for speed, flexibility and maintenance and repair in operations to protect Taiwan's fishery interests.

    The CGA currently has 14 vessels of more than 500 tons and 152 ships smaller than 500 tons -- lagging well behind the Japanese authorities' scale, the officials said.

    Japan's marine defense authorities have a total of 79 boats weighing over 500 tons, 380 patrol vessels of less than 500 tons and 73 aircraft, while its agriculture and fisheries authorities have 31 ships above 500 tons and four planes, according to the officials.

    During the 2005-2007 period, Japan posted marked increases in budgets for constructing vessels, with the figure jumping to the equivalent of more than NT$13 billion in 2007, up from NT$4.13 billion in 2005, the officials went on.

    The country's need to build more vessels to protect Taiwanese fishing boats operating on the high seas has become more urgent after a sport fishing boat from Taipei County, the Lien Ho, collided last Tuesday with a Japanese coast patrol frigate in disputed Japan-controlled waters near the Tiaoyutai islands.

    The Lien Ho sank after the collision and its skipper was held for three days by the Japanese authorities until last Friday. The Taiwanese captain has demanded that Japan apologize and compensate him for his losses.

    The waters around the Tiaoyutais, some 100 miles from northeastern Taiwan, have for centuries been a traditional fishing ground of Taiwanese fishermen and the Republic of China considers they are to be under the jurisdiction of the Yilan county government.

    However, the United States turned over the Tiaoyutais to Japan when it returned Okinawa to Tokyo in 1972, although Taiwan believes that the island group belongs to Taiwan from judicial, historical and geographic perspectives.

    Japan controls the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkaku islands in Japanese, under the jurisdiction of Ishigawa, part of Okinawa Prefecture.

(By Flor Wang)

ENDITEM/J