Taiwan launches detention rule in light of 'gray zone' activities at sea

Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) Taiwan's authorities said Thursday that a mechanism has been established to facilitate interdepartmental efforts to allow vessels suspected of engaging in acts of sabotage in coastal waters to be detained.

The introduction of the new procedure followed an incident at sea earlier this month, when Chunghwa Telecom reported that one of its major undersea fiber-optic cables had been damaged, apparently by a vessel that was seen in the same location off the northern port city of Keelung.

At a legislative hearing Thursday, Legislator Lin Chu-yin (林楚茵) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party noted that the Cameroon-flagged Shunxin39 cargo ship, which is Chinese-owned, had not been detained and had sailed off to Busan.

Consequently, Taiwan now has to resort to diplomatic channels and ask for South Korea's assistance to investigate the Jan. 3 incident, Lin said.

During the hearing, Lin asked Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽), deputy head of the Coast Guard Administration (CGA), why the CGA had not been able to detain the vessel in Keelung Harbor.

In response, Hsieh said that the ship's destination was Busan, and it did not have the necessary documents for docking in Keelung Harbor.

Furthermore, under the previous procedure, the CGA could only detain a foreign vessel if it was caught in the act of violating the law, Hsieh said. In the case of the damaged Chunghwa Telecom cable, CGA vessels arrived on the scene four hours after the company filed the report, he added.

Following the incident, an interdepartmental meeting was called, during which the relevant agencies agreed on a mechanism to deal with suspected acts of sabotage at sea, according to Hsieh.

Under the new mechanism, prosecutors will launch a probe upon receiving any information about suspected sabotage of undersea cables, and they will notify the CGA and Maritime and Port Bureau, Hsieh said.

The CGA and the bureau will then follow a designated procedure to bring the suspected vessel back to a port and detain it, Hsieh said.

Meanwhile, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said at the hearing that the bureau will work with the CGA to improve the reporting of ships engaged in "suspicious" activities in waters around Taiwan, especially flag-of-convenience vessels.

Furthermore, the NSB will provide information to CGA personnel, in the form of lectures, to help deal with the different types of "gray zone" activities by Chinese ships, he said in response to a question on the issue by Lin.

Before attending the hearing, the NSB head told reporters that his agency had made a request to Taiwan's international allies for the exchange of information on China's gray zone activities around Taiwan.

Gray zone activities refer to actions that fall between traditional notions of war and peace. These activities typically involve ambiguous or nontraditional methods that aim to achieve strategic objectives without overtly crossing the threshold into open conflict.