Taiwan on Tuesday drove away a Chinese coast guard boat that entered waters near its sensitive front-line islands as tensions rise a day after officers from a similar vessel boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat in an incident that a Taiwanese minister said had triggered "panic."
A Chinese coast guard boat, numbered 8029, entered Taiwan's waters near Kinmen on Tuesday morning, Taiwan's coast guard said, adding that it dispatched a boat and used radio and broadcast to drive away its Chinese counterpart, which left the area an hour later.
Taiwan's coast guard said it would continue to use radar, surveillance and patrols to ensure the "harmony and safety" of the waters near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, which are close to China's shores.
Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory despite the island's rejection, has been wary of efforts by Beijing to ramp up pressure on Taipei following last month's election of Lai Ching-te as president. Beijing considers him a dangerous separatist.
China announced on Sunday that its coast guard would begin regular patrols and set up law enforcement activity around the Kinmen islands following the death of two Chinese nationals fleeing Taiwan's coast guard, after they entered restricted waters too close to Kinmen.
Six Chinese coast guard officers on Monday boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat carrying 11 crew and 23 passengers to check its route plan, certificate and crew licenses, leaving around half an hour later, Taiwan's coast guard said.
China's coast guard, which has no publicly available contact details, has yet to comment. China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kinmen is a short boat ride from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou and has been controlled by Taipei since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, who set up the People's Republic of China.
Kinmen is home to a large Taiwanese military garrison, but it is Taiwan's coast guard that patrols its waters.
In the United States, which does not recognize Taiwan officially but is committed to providing it with the means to defend itself, the State Department said it was "closely monitoring Beijing's actions."
"We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo, which has preserved peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and throughout the region for decades," spokesperson Matthew Miller told a regular news briefing.
China says it does not recognize any restricted or banned zones for its fishermen around Kinmen.
Its military has over the past four years regularly sent warplanes and warships into the skies and seas around Taiwan as it seeks to assert its sovereignty claims, and has continued to do so following last month's election.
A senior Taiwan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believed Beijing seized on the Kinmen incident with the deaths of the two Chinese nationals as an "excuse" to further pile pressure on Lai, but did not want to turn it into an "international incident."
China is likely to continue to increase pressure on Taiwan ahead of Lai's May 20 inauguration, the official said.
Recent Chinese pressure has seen Taiwan lose one of its few remaining diplomatic allies, the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, to China and a change to a flight path over the Taiwan Strait.
Chinese state media said Quanzhou Red Cross officials, accompanied by family members, arrived on Kinmen on Tuesday to bring home the two survivors from the boat that overturned when it tried to out-run Taiwan's coast guard last week.
China has never ruled out using force to take control of Taiwan. Lai and Taiwan's government reject Beijing's sovereignty and say only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.
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