By Lewis Jackson and Ben Blanchard
BEIJING/TAIPEI, July 4 (Reuters) – China said on Saturday it had launched a coast guard patrol east of Taiwan to replace a naval task force whose presence off the island’s coast has angered Taipei and caused alarm in some Western capitals.
The fleet will conduct “law enforcement patrols” in the area, China’s Coast Guard said in a statement, adding it would strengthen such patrols in what it called China’s jurisdictional waters.
In response, Taiwan’s Coast Guard said it had deployed monitoring vessels and would use “all necessary measures to forcefully expel Chinese vessels harassing our waters”.
This is the second time in roughly a month that China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has sent Coast Guard ships into the waters off Taiwan’s east coast. It risks escalating a diplomatic dispute that has drawn in the U.S., France, Germany and Britain.
China said the first operation in June was in response to an announcement by Japan and the Philippines that they would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries, which Beijing viewed as involving Chinese waters off Taiwan.
Taiwan said on Wednesday that Taiwanese ships off the east coast should ignore any boarding and inspection demands by China’s Coast Guard, and if necessary Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels would intervene to stop it from happening.
China recognises no claims of sovereignty by Taiwan and considers the island and the waters around it to be its own territory. Taiwan says China has no right to claim any sovereignty or jurisdiction over the island or its waters.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Lewis Jackson in Beijing; Editing by William Mallard)
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