China passes law giving coast guard freedom to fire at foreign vessels
BEIJING: China’s passed a controversial law that gives the coast guard more freedom to fire on foreign vessels, a move that could fuel the risk of military miscalculation in the Western Pacific.
The law is aimed at “safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime rights,” the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report on Saturday. The law will take effect from February 1.
China’s coast guard would be allowed to take “all necessary means,” including the use of weapons, to stop or prevent threats from foreign vessels, according to the text released by
Xinhua. Coast guard personnel will be permitted to board and inspect foreign ships operating in China’s “jurisdictional waters”, a term covering areas claimed by other countries.
The move could raise the risk of miscalculation in the vast
areas of disputed waters that stretch out from China’s coast. Chinese coast guard ships often come into close contact - sometimes engaging in tense standoffs - with foreign vessels, as they assert Beijing’s claims to much of the South and East China seas.
Taiwan reports incursion by Chinese air force
TAIPEI: Eight Chinese bomber planes and four fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Saturday, and Taiwan’s air force deployed missiles to “monitor” the incursion, the island’s defence ministry said.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted almost daily flights over the waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea in recent months. However they have generally consisted of just one or two reconnaissance aircraft.
The presence of so many Chinese combat aircraft on this mission is unusual.