Chinese coast guard boards Taiwanese tourist boat as it steps up patrols

China’s coast guard briefly boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat, a Taiwan minister said Tuesday, escalating a dispute over the deaths of two Chinese fishermen.

HONG KONG — China’s coast guard briefly boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat, a Taiwanese official said Tuesday, escalating a dispute with the Beijing-claimed island over the deaths of two Chinese fishermen.

China said Sunday that it would strengthen law enforcement activities and carry out regular patrols around Kinmen, a small group of Taiwanese-controlled islands off the Chinese coast, after the two fishermen drowned last week while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard, which accused them of trespassing.

Six Chinese coast guard officers boarded the Taiwanese sightseeing vessel Monday afternoon, Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement. It said the boat, which was carrying 11 crew members and 23 passengers, was “veering” toward mainland China because of shallow beaches in the nearby waters of Kinmen, which is about 3 miles from the Chinese city of Xiamen.

The officers spent about half an hour on the boat, where they inspected its sailing plan and certificate and the licenses of the captain and crew, Taiwan’s coast guard said.

The rare boarding “hurts the feelings of our people, provokes fear among them and is not in the interest of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, which oversees the island’s coast guard, told reporters in Taipei on Tuesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chinese-coast-guard-boards-taiwan-tourist-boat-rcna139506

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