Analysis: Small Boat Crossings Pose Challenges for Taiwan's Coast Guard

TaiwanPlus News

Analysts say Taiwan's coast guard should look for new ways to strengthen maritime border security after two recent cases of people making solo crossings from China to Taiwan by boat.

Transcript

00:00Brandon, we've seen a number of incidents from people breaching Taiwan's maritime borders

00:05and coming onto shore. Is this part of a bigger issue?

00:08I think that when you look at these individually, you really have to gauge a lot of the different

00:13factors that go into how much of this is a threat. I think that in previous ones, you're

00:19looking at a rigid hole or a metal hole that has a higher risk, potential for risk to Taiwan

00:26on a security side. But this latest incident with a rubber hole, it's not going to be a

00:32threat really on a security wise. It's pretty easy to puncture. It may not actually even

00:38be picked up on radar because of the lack of a rigid hole. So when we look at this,

00:44you look at the conditions that the person was in. This really does point more to a humanitarian

00:49response effort than it is a security effort.

00:54So then, is the frequency in which these activities are happening, is this more of

00:58a concern then? And is this more than Taiwan is used to dealing with?

01:02Now, obviously this is the second one in so many months. I think the third or fourth one

01:08in the past year. The frequency of these incidences is something that could be of concern, but

01:16realistically what we're seeing right now probably is within that realm of normal activities

01:23that occur on a maritime border. I would point to things like the Alaska-Russian border.

01:28These kinds of events happen there, South Korea, North Korea, where you would suspect

01:33North Korean defectors to be a spy or part of the military, as many of the men are.

01:39Now, this rubber boat came from around Ningbo in China, which is north of Taiwan and west

01:44of Japan. Do you think this maybe could be a way for the two countries, Japan and Taiwan,

01:49to work together in the sense of sharing information about these incidents?

01:54I think that every incident that occurs is always a great opportunity to examine what

02:00went wrong, what could go better. I think that the Coast Guard response here was the

02:04appropriate response. They looked at what the threat was, what the possibilities were,

02:10they responded appropriately. I think that when we look at what the Taiwan Coast Guard

02:17administration is supposed to do, they did exactly what they are in this scenario. So

02:21I think here, it's trying to find lessons where things have gone in the correct direction,

02:27trying to find lessons where things went right. I think cooperation with Japan, with the Philippines,

02:35with other neighbors is always a great start to help build that maritime domain awareness,

02:39not just for this incident, but really for monitoring and monitoring all the traffic

02:45in the maritime waters.

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