The incident came as the Chinese government announced it would step up patrols in Taiwan's Kinmen Islands following the deaths of two Chinese fishermen in the area.
Chinese Coast Guard officers briefly boarded a Taiwanese cruise ship on Monday in an incident that the Taipei government said caused panic among residents of the autonomous island.
The incident follows the deaths of two Chinese fishermen who drowned during a chase last week near Taiwan's Kinmen Islands, off the coast of China's Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, prompting the Chinese government to step up patrols in the area. It happened the day after the announcement. By Taiwan Coast Guard Bureau.
The Taiwan Coast Guard said in a statement on Monday that six Chinese officials boarded the Taiwanese tourist boat, which was carrying 11 crew members and 23 passengers.
Chinese authorities checked the boat's route plan, certificates and crew licenses, and the boat departed about 30 minutes later.
Taiwan's Coast Guard said it had dispatched officers to the scene. The newspaper said they arrived shortly after the Chinese nationals disembarked from the cruise ship and accompanied the ship to Kinmen's Shuitou port.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government, which claims Taiwan as its own territory.
In Taipei, Kuan Bi-lin, head of the Taiwan Maritime Affairs Council, condemned the Chinese government's actions.
“We think it hurt public sentiments and caused panic among people. It is also not in the interests of the people across the Strait,” she told reporters, adding that Chinese and Taiwanese tourist boats He added that it is common for ships to accidentally cross into the waters of the opposite shore.
“Boats like this are not illegal at all,” she said.
Kinmen is located just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Xiamen, China, and has been administered by Taipei since Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists defected to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists. There is.
Taiwanese and Chinese fishermen regularly ply the waters between Kinmen and mainland China. And on Wednesday, Taiwan announced that two of four Chinese fishermen were killed when their boat capsized while fleeing the Taiwan Coast Guard.
The newspaper said their boat was fishing in “prohibited waters” about 1 nautical mile (1.8 km) from the Kinmen Islands.
The two remaining survivors remain in Taiwanese custody.
China issued a blistering condemnation, and its coast guard announced it would step up law enforcement patrols in the area.
China Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu said in a statement on Sunday that the patrols were aimed at “further maintaining order in activities in the relevant sea areas and safeguarding the safety of fishermen's lives.”
The Chinese government also called for the immediate release of the detained Chinese nationals.
The Taiwan Mainland Affairs Committee, which handles matters related to Beijing, announced late Monday that the families of the detained Chinese crew members were scheduled to arrive in Kinmen on Tuesday.
The Straits Exchange Foundation, a Taiwanese semi-official agency that handles technical and business operations with China, said it would “deploy personnel to Kinmen Island as well to provide humanitarian care to families on the mainland and assist with the subsequent response.” ” he said. .
This incident further escalated tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has increasingly voiced his desire to unify China and Taiwan, while the Chinese military has increased pressure on the island by deploying fighter jets and ships near Taiwan almost every day.
Taiwan's presidential election was held in January, and the Democratic Progressive Party's Lai Ching-de, a candidate considered a “separatist” by the Chinese government, won.