In the 18 days since the Kinmen ship capsizing incident, mainland China’s coast guard has continued regular law enforcement patrols in the Xiamen-Xiamen waters (called the Kinmen-Xiamen waters in Taiwan). Taiwan officials have classified this as a gray area of ​​oppression. Scholars interviewed analyzed that these pressure actions are likely to further expand to the east of the central line of the Taiwan Strait in the future. If Taiwan does not prepare in advance, it may face greater pressure.

Since the case of a mainland fishing boat that capsized in Kinmen and killed two people on February 14, 11 rounds of cross-strait consultations have failed. The mainland coast guard has also continued to carry out regular law enforcement patrols in Xiamen and Jinmen waters, putting pressure on Taiwan.

Since the evening of Wednesday (February 28), a number of Taiwanese media have quoted senior national security officials saying that China is using the matter to carry out gray area oppression against Taiwan; Taiwan has initially characterized the matter as a maritime law enforcement incident and has nothing to do with politics. Independent judicial investigation and appropriate exposure of media community operations will be used to minimize the effects of oppression.

The so-called gray zone conflicts refer to non-traditional security and irregular armed conflicts between war and peace. Common forms include cyber warfare, disinformation, exercise siege, economic sanctions, espionage, and maritime militias. Gray zone oppression refers to using these conflicts to exert pressure.

Jie Zhong, a researcher at Taiwan’s China Strategic Foresight Association, pointed out in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao that the mainland coast guard’s actions are certainly part of the gray area behavior, but Beijing’s more important goal is to promote legal war against the Taiwan Strait. At this stage, we are using this incident to break through the law enforcement power and jurisdiction over the forbidden and restricted waters of Kinmen and Matsu. In the next step, we believe that the scope will be expanded to the east of the central line of the Taiwan Strait.

However, in the Kinmen boat capsizing incident, Taiwan officials announced that the incident was like “squeezing toothpaste”. At first, they only mentioned that the Chinese fishing boat was snaking and refused inspection. It was not until the surviving crew members returned to the mainland and complained through the media that the speedboat was overturned that they admitted that the two boats were overturned. collisions.

In addition, the Taiwan Coast Guard initially refused to hand over the video of the incident on the grounds that the investigation was not open to the public. The Taiwanese government’s Ocean Commission chairperson Guan Biling also said that the pursuit video was about five minutes long and decided to hand it over to the investigation department for investigation first. announced. In the end, Taiwanese officials changed their tune, saying that there was no video recording of the eviction and capsizing process, and the coast guard vessel was not equipped with a ship-wide surveillance system.

Jie Zhong believes that Taiwan has somewhat ignored the impact of the incident in its response. It was too late for senior national security officials to come out to set the tone more than ten days after the incident, which has limited effect on gathering public confidence.

He judged that even if the consultation ends, China’s coast guard ships will continue to break through the restricted waters, and even exercise hot pursuit rights on the pretext of pursuing ships, crossing to the east of the central line of the Taiwan Strait. At that time, the frequency of close encounters between law enforcement vessels on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will also increase. Taiwan must now develop various possible contingency plans.

However, Su Yihao, an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University, and Shen Zhixin, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, have conducted a two-year research project on gray zone conflicts since November last year. A first-stage situational questionnaire survey of 1,500 people found that if the Taiwan government takes strong countermeasures to pressure the mainland in gray areas, it can indeed increase public support.

Su Yihao mentioned in a speech at the Institute of Political Science of Academia Sinica on Thursday (February 29) that this phenomenon can also explain why Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen asked the Ministry of National Defense to take necessary and powerful countermeasures after the People’s Liberation Army conducted military exercises around Taiwan in August 2022. measures, as well as the Taiwan government’s announcement before the Lunar New Year that the tourism industry would stop organizing group tours to the mainland to counter the mainland’s ban on Taiwanese group tourists.

But why did the Taiwanese government respond relatively low-key to the Kinmen boat capsizing incident? When asked by Lianhe Zaobao during the Q&A session of his speech, Su Yihao analyzed that the current opposition between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait on this matter is very high, which is likely to make it difficult to reach a preliminary negotiation result. One of the reasons.

He believes that in this situation, if the government wants to prevent the situation from reaching a deadlock or even a conflict, it will not only consider public opinion and choose strong counterattacks.

2024-03-01 11:04:00
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