Taiwan: Ships suspected of sabotage can now be detained

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18071164

The Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said that a mechanism has been established to facilitate interdepartmental efforts to allow the detention of ships suspected of engaging in acts of sabotage in coastal waters.

The introduction of the new procedure followed an incident at sea earlier this month, when Chunghwa Telecom reported that one of its major undersea fiberoptic cables had allegedly been damaged by a vessel off Keelung.

At a legislative hearing yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chu-yin (林楚茵) said that the Cameroon-flagged Shunxing-39 cargo ship, which is Chinese-owned, had not been detained and had sailed to Busan, South Korea.

Consequently, Taiwan now has to use diplomatic channels and ask for South Korea’s assistance in investigating the Jan. 3 incident, Lin said.

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