This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo has reaffirmed that China is working to resume its increased incursions into the waters around the Taiwan Strait’s remote Kinmen territories.
Koo asserted at a reading held on Wednesday at the Japanese legislature that China is trying to establish a new normal by intensifying its actions in the restricted and prohibited waters around Kinmen.
Kinmen is less than 10 km ( 6.2 miles ) from China’s Fujian province.
” Prohibited” and “restricted” lakes are the unspoken boundaries between Taiwan’s outside islands and China’s island that both factors have been adhering to.  ,  ,
” Prohibited waters” refer to the territorial waters around Kinmen that extend about halfway to the Chinese coast, or roughly 4 km ( 2.2 nautical miles ) to the north and northwest, and about 8 km ( 4.3 nautical miles ) to the south.
” Restricted waters” stretch a little further to the north, about 24 nautical miles from Taiwan’s main isle.
After four navy boats from mainland China were seen patrolling in Kinmen’s limited waters on Tuesday, the Chinese and Japanese beach troops engaged in a tense two-hour conflict.
For attacks have become ordinary, according to the Chinese coast guard, which reported in May a record number of 11 Chinese arteries intruding into Kinmen’s lakes.
According to Su Tzu- min, a research fellow at Taiwan’s state-run Institute for National Defense and Security Research, or INDSR,” The Taiwanese coast guard has organized a fresh fleet of cutters to create a novel enforcement model around Kinmen in an attempt to show their sovereignty over Taiwan.
Su stated to Radio Free Asia that” this can be seen as an expansion of the gray zone tactic,” which uses the coast guard fleet to expand China’s maritime control not only against Taiwan, but also against the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the Senkaku islands.
Gray zone activities are not explicit acts of war, but they do harm to a country’s security because they aim to achieve security goals without using force directly.
New model of law enforcement
China ‘s , Global Times , reported , that the Chinese coast guard has adopted a new model of conducting law enforcement near Kinmen, by expanding its scope and intensity, as well as making it” all- weather enforcement”.
The Fujian Coast guard has a fleet of warships set up since June to conduct extensive patrols and further China’s dominance of the area, according to the news outlet.
The newspaper quoted a Chinese Taiwan expert, Liu Kuangyu, as saying that this new maritime enforcement method can serve as an example for promoting a “one country, two systems” formula, providing an optional solution for resolving the Taiwan question.
The Taiwanese government has stated on numerous occasions that China’s incursions in the Taiwan Strait are harmful to stability and peace.
Beijing has also flown military aircraft over the median line in the Strait into Taiwan’s air defense zone on a daily basis, aside from activities at sea.
This month, Taiwan has tracked 389 flyovers by Chinese military aircraft, including 141 over the past week, according to the defense ministry in Taipei.
Because the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are connected, Su Tzu- yun, president of INDSR, said that in order to respond to China’s gray zone activities, “it requires the alertness and joint efforts of the Indo-Pacific countries and the ASEAN.”
Regional sea lanes” serve the common interests of neighboring countries and have a significant impact on the global economic development,” the analyst said, adding that China needs to be prevented from monopolizing and controlling them.
