Taiwan’s coastguard has requested special funding to boost coastal surveillance after a series of alarming undetected landings on sensitive shores by people in inflatable boats from mainland China.
Advertisement
The call for better surveillance came after two mainland Chinese residents – a 41-year-old man and his 17-year-old son, surnamed Song – sailed to Taiwan illegally on Thursday by crossing the Taiwan Strait in a 3.3-metre (11-foot) inflatable boat. They landed on Guanyin Beach in Taoyuan, a zone regularly used by the military for live-fire exercises.
The pair turned themselves in the next morning, claiming they were fleeing persecution and seeking freedom in Taiwan.
On Monday in Taipei, Hsieh Ching-chin, deputy head of Taiwan’s coastguard administration, said the pair had left Pingtan in Fujian province, about 70 nautical miles away, using a main tank of fuel and two 20-litre (5.30-gallon) backup containers – a “reasonable” estimate for the crossing.
Their arrival was overshadowed by a viral video posted on mainland Chinese social media the same day. In it, a man dubbed “Shandong Kai Ge” claimed to have crossed the strait solo in a rubber boat, landed on a beach near a wind farm just 10km (6 miles) north of Guanyin, hoisted a mainland Chinese flag, and returned to the mainland the same day – all while declaring Taiwan “free to come and go”.
Hsieh confirmed the video was genuine, recorded near wind turbines in Taoyuan’s Dayuan district, though authorities were still investigating whether the man actually crossed the strait or staged the scene with local help. “The site in the video is only 10.9km from where the father and son landed,” he noted.
Advertisement
Asked whether such crossings were technically feasible, Hsieh said that in the case of the viral video, the direct route from Changle, Fujian to Dayuan was 95 nautical miles, requiring about 117 litres of fuel for a round trip. “If he carried four 30-litre tanks, it is not impossible – but very difficult,” he said.
