In a provocative incident, the Taiwanese tourist boat King Xia was boarded and inspected by personnel from the Chinese Coast Guard in waters near Taipei’s Kinmen Islands on Feb. 19. The incident came five days after a Chinese speedboat capsized while being chased by a Taiwanese coast guard vessel, drowning two out of four fishermen on board.
The incidents fueled cross-strait tensions as Beijing has responded with increased patrols near the Kinmen Islands, which lie just under two miles offshore of China.
The statement said that Chinese fishing boats have “repeatedly” breached Taiwan’s restricted waters in past years, forcing the Taiwanese coast guard to step up law enforcement.
Building a False Narrative
Frank Lehberger is a Europe-based sinologist with 30 years of experience as a political analyst and consultant in Asia. He is familiar with Taiwan’s politics, having lived there for over a decade during its transition to democracy in the 1990s. Mr. Lehberger discussed the fishing boat incident in an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times.In his opinion, the incident was used to build a fake narrative, as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) narrative warfare operations against democratically ruled Taiwan.
“The cruise ship incident is just a minor piece in the unfolding Chinese narrative warfare operation,” Mr. Lehberger said. “The intended Chinese message to public opinion in Taiwan was that Taiwan authorities are impotent and unable to protect their own citizens on this cruise ship from being imprisoned on whatever Chinese charges, thus driving a wedge between the citizens and the new government they just elected.”
In short, he said, the message is that “those Taiwanese all belong to us; we need not care [about] their laws and regulations.”
The incident was exploited for domestic consumption within China, Mr. Lehberger said. The goal was to distract the Chinese people from the widespread internal turmoil facing China’s leadership.
A market meltdown on Feb. 5 hurt millions of small retail investors, as more than 1,800 stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets fell more than 10 percent.
In outrage, netizens took to the Chinese language social media account of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to vent their frustration. Hoping their comments would escape censorship, tens of thousands complained about the economic situation in comments to an innocuous embassy Weibo post on giraffe conservation, in what soon became known as the “giraffe incident.”
“This market rout could so far only be reversed by Xi Jinping prohibiting the Chinese markets from selling stocks at will. By definition [it] is then not a market anymore,” said Mr. Lehberger.
The sinologist said that China’s communist leadership is arousing “chauvinistic narratives and states of mind” among ordinary Chinese. He called the Feb. 14 incident a “godsend” for Beijing, allowing it to spin a propaganda tale to further that end.
Rumors of a Hoax
Mr. Lehberger called the capsized boat incident a “hoax.” It was unfortunate that the boat’s two survivors were released without interrogation, he said.“Those fishermen were definitely fake; this is corroborated by an array of confirmed facts,” he said.
In its statement, the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council expressed similar views: “Over the past years, a small number of people from mainland China have trespassed in Taiwan’s waters to dredge sand, fish with explosives and poisons, dump trash at sea, and engage in other actions harmful to the marine ecosystem.”
Mr. Lehberger said the claims also arose because “the survivors spoke Mandarin with accents from inland provinces.” He voiced suspicions “that all 4 were [not] locals from the Fujian coast and therefore totally ignorant how to fish and how to survive while having accidentally fallen into the sea.”
The Taiwanese navy has been monitoring the waters around Kinmen for any illegal activities that involve various craft, similar to the capsized speed boat, he said.
“The speed boat in question is actually unsuited for any regular fishing activity, while it is perfect for smuggling and evading law enforcement. Such boats are called (by Taiwanese and Chinese authorities alike) the ’three no‘ boats:’ no identification/name, no documents, and no registration at any harbor,” Mr. Lehberger said.
The Taiwanese government returned the two survivors to China, without first subjecting them to a thorough interrogation to establish their identity and motives, he said. In addition, “Taiwan media were not allowed [to interview] those two. Something which made sense in order not to unilaterally escalate tensions with China.”
Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said in a statement that it was unable to film the incident due to the high speed and short duration of the chase.
The coast guard’s inability to provide key details proved to be a serious mistake for Taiwan, Mr. Lehberger said, although officials said that the lapse was unintentional.
Initially, Taiwan failed to disclose that the two boats collided before the Chinese vessel overturned, just 0.86 nautical miles into the Taiwanese waters.
“The Chinese immediately [exploited] the two survivors as propaganda assets, portraying them as victims, in orchestrated performances in front of Chinese media,” Mr. Lehberger said.
“Viewers could watch them melodramatically and tearfully deploring the alleged ‘inhuman and brutal actions’ of [the] Taiwan Coast Guard, which had supposedly rammed their speed boat ’on purpose,‘ overturning it to ’kill' them.”
Despite the warring narratives, an anonymous Taiwanese official told The Epoch Times he believed the incident was simple, but was politicized due to the lack of video.
“[The] Taiwanese coast guard asked the fishing boat to stop for onboard inspection. This is the legal right for any sovereign state,” the official said, stressing that the coast guard was within its rights.
Taiwan Says Its Military Will Not Get Involved
After the Feb. 14 incident, Taiwanese defense minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the island’s military would not get involved. Taiwan’s coast guard is responsible for monitoring the waters around Kinmen, he said, “because we want to avoid war.”Mr. Lehberger called it a “cautious move” although it has been criticized within Taiwan.
“Taiwan signals to the Chinese side that they should also not involve their military. Something the Chinese will probably reciprocate, simply because the incident also caught them by surprise and ... the Chinese military is still unprepared,” he said.
However, demands that Taiwan’s military should be involved in monitoring the waters around Kinmen are not off the mark altogether, he added.
“China has voiced its intention to unilaterally (and illegally according to international law) turn the important international waterway Taiwan Strait into an internal Chinese lake by using the Chinese navy as an enforcer.”
Drawing on International Support
Taiwan could effectively counter the Chinese narrative by internationalizing the incident, Mr. Lehberger suggested, drawing in the United States and Japan. Employing coast guard support in the international waters near Taiwan is one way to achieve this.“As no one nation has jurisdiction in the international waters of the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan Island and Kinmen, and as nobody is at war yet, only coast guards can effectively police such situations,” he said.
In addition to Taiwan’s coast guard, units from the United States and Japan are also permanently operating in the waters around Taiwan. A U.S. Coast Guard unit has sailed through the Taiwan strait in support of the Taiwan coast guard and more could follow, he added.
“China is also currently unable to escalate the situation militarily, because they would have to confront or at least monitor the movement of superior U.S. forces in the vicinity,” said Mr. Lehberger.
China Sees International Involvement as a ‘Grave Danger’
In China, the communist regime’s fourth-ranked leader, Wang Huning, held a two-day meeting last week assessing this year’s Taiwan-related efforts, according to Chinese state news agency, Xinhua.This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Wang said Beijing “must resolutely combat the division of Taiwan independence, contain interference from external forces, firmly support the patriotic and reunification forces on the island, unite Taiwan compatriots, and maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Talk of reducing external interference proves his point, Mr. Lehberger said: the most effective way for Taiwan to neutralize the effects of the Chinese effort is by internationalizing the case, drawing in coast guard assets from the United States and Japan.
International involvement is precisely what Beijing does not want, he said. China sees it as“a grave danger” to its aim of “destroying the democracy of Taiwan and robbing it of its legitimate defenses.” In response, any support from the United States or Japan will be mislabeled as foreign interference, he said.
